So the best-laid plans are susceptible to unexpected situations. For us, that was the discovery of tick-borne illness. There is controversy in the medical community in Canada around Chronic Lyme Disease, but the reality is that Chronic (or mid to late-stage neurological) Lyme is the fastest growing epidemic in North America that is only now garnering attention.
If we had been able to catch the infection within the first month, one round of antibiotics is enough to stop Lyme and clear it out of the body. However we were one of the thousands of Lyme sufferers who did not have the bulls-eye rash symptom, and combined with the fact that current outdated Canadian tests provide up to 70% false negatives, we were not aware of the infection until we both had neurological symptoms. We may be able to become symptom-free after 1-5 years of antibiotic treatment, but currently there is no test to reveal whether we have indeed kicked Lyme, and it may come back.
So what this all means is that we need to downsize, focus on surviving, and let go of a dream. Our current plan is to sell our acreage, hopefully to someone who can continue to produce naturally-grown fruit for the local market, and we will live in a much smaller house and lower-maintenance yard that is manageable for our condition. Maybe someday we'll recover enough to start again, but at the very least we'll try to produce fruit for our own family on a very small scale wherever we are!
We probably will still be selling up until this fall with the help of family and friends (unless someone offers to purchase the yard and orchard and is excited to already sell this summer, we might be persuaded to move out sooner!)
If we had been able to catch the infection within the first month, one round of antibiotics is enough to stop Lyme and clear it out of the body. However we were one of the thousands of Lyme sufferers who did not have the bulls-eye rash symptom, and combined with the fact that current outdated Canadian tests provide up to 70% false negatives, we were not aware of the infection until we both had neurological symptoms. We may be able to become symptom-free after 1-5 years of antibiotic treatment, but currently there is no test to reveal whether we have indeed kicked Lyme, and it may come back.
So what this all means is that we need to downsize, focus on surviving, and let go of a dream. Our current plan is to sell our acreage, hopefully to someone who can continue to produce naturally-grown fruit for the local market, and we will live in a much smaller house and lower-maintenance yard that is manageable for our condition. Maybe someday we'll recover enough to start again, but at the very least we'll try to produce fruit for our own family on a very small scale wherever we are!
We probably will still be selling up until this fall with the help of family and friends (unless someone offers to purchase the yard and orchard and is excited to already sell this summer, we might be persuaded to move out sooner!)
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