Another Lyme death...can it really be?

Greenwich Village Death Ruled A Suicide:

Not to depress people further because I really would like to put positive news on here as well, but reality is hard and Lyme disease reality is really fucking harsh. It is sad, but I've been told suicide is the number one cause of death in Lyme patients, and there have been a lot this year. After my friend Lindsay's passing last month, I just heard about this Lyme suicide:

Greenwich Village Death Ruled A Suicide
http://gothamist.com/2010/10/06/me_rules_west_4th_death_was_a_suici.php

The note states: A suicide note was found in Event Planner Bryan Jacobson's apartment at 250 Mercer Street, and the Daily News reports, "In the note, Jacobson wrote that he could no longer deal with his health issues, the sources said. He suffered from Lyme disease. Investigators believe Jacobson first tried to suffocate himself, and when that didn't work, he jumped from a window about 10:45 p.m." A neighbor told the Post that Jacobson's business wasn't doing well.

What irritates me is that another link states that neighbors said Jacobsen, who planned the 2008 wedding of Raphael De Niro and Claudine DeMatos in the Bahamas, had fallen on hard times.

“He was definitely depressed. His event planning business wasn’t doing well, and that might have been part of it,” said one neighbor. It seems that he just took his life because of hard times....That may be, but knowing the extreme nature of this disease, my question is:

HELLO, what about the Lyme Disease? WHY was it skipped over like a safety pin on the road? Is so little known about the actual Lyme patient experience (the answer is yes) so that people wouldn't even imagine he would take his life because of the horrific physical and emotional suffering that accompanies it? Not to mention it strips you financially bare.

So much is known about the difficulties of living with cancer, HIV/AIDS, MS, ALS, and I think the time has come for Lyme.

If the general public was educated about Lyme, one could perhaps easily link the fact that he had fallen on hard times (possibly) because he was ill with Lyme Disease, an illness that most people know very little about and that strips you of so much more than just physical functioning, but your mind and your cognition. Every person I know with Lyme, able to work or not, faces major challenges with their illness affecting their work and day to day living.

Just food for thought. Again, AWARENESS is so key. I'm not trying to march in with Lyme colored glasses and blame Lyme for everything. I am trying to open a dialogue, which sadly, most of the medical community REFUSES to hear about.


That's where I come in.

If it means I have to scare the living shit out of people to explain this disease until something is done in this country about the state of this epidemic, so be it. If it means I have to spend the first three years when I'm back on my lawyer feet testifying in front of Congress, so be it.

I am sooo sick and tired of this disease on some days after years of this shit; last night after my infusion, I just wanted to lay on the ground and flail about and cry til someone rescued me. But it's not going to happen. Then horrible, tragic things like this occur, and it reminds me to delicately peel my teary sticky face off the ground, realize no caped superman is coming to hold me in his arms, get up, and FIGHT.