Joni and our daughter Kim flew out to Miami, FL for the taping of “The Cristina Show” at the beginning of this week.  The Cristina Show is aired throughout Latin America and in the US on the Univision Network and is watched by millions of Spanish speakers.  For you gueros, Cristina would be best described as the Latin American equivalent of Oprah.  For us Latin Americans Oprah is the English speaking equivalent of Cristina.

They contacted us through our Facebook group “Living With Lyme” and wanted to do a special on Swine Flu and Lyme Disease.  Joni and Kim were on the panel of “experts”.  There were two doctors, a Lyme patient (Joni) and a family member (Kim).  During the taping Cristina did a good job of representing the facts about Lyme Disease.  Cristina’s goal was to raise awareness of Lyme Disease and it sounds like she did a good job.  We want to thank “The Cristina Show” for the invitation and for treating Kim and Joni so well during their stay in Miami.  Joni and Kim played a small part of the show but were able to have concrete input to the panel and were able to have a signifiacnt effect on the show’s staff and audience.

The lights and sound of the studio affected Joni to the point that she folded (one of her seizures) almost immediately after the taping.  They helped her and Kim back to the hotel (a suite bigger than most homes) and she came out of it as usual in about 3 hours.  Joni was able to rest until her flight back the next day and was good until about 3 hours into the flight and had another seizure.  All the traveling, taping and excitement was too much, too fast for her.  American Airlines has a lift team that got Joni off the plane and brought her all the way to the car and lifted her in so we could make the trip home.  (Thanks American Airlines!)  By the time we got home she could get up on her feet again.

Two seizures in this short of time have drained her physically and neurologically.  I expect that she will need more than a week to recuperate.   Joni was thrilled to be part of such an opportunity to make Lyme Disease known better by the general populace.  Though she sufferd the 2 seizures she considers it a privilege to be honored with this invitation to represent Lyme Disease patients internationally.  Joni says, “It was worth all the difficulties of the siezures just to know that people will be better informed and aware of Lyme Disease”.

If you have not seen the documentary “Under Our Skin” (underourskin.com) we’d like to encourage you to view it.  The producer of this film does a fine job of researching and following Lyme patients through their difficult lives and treatment, as well and educating the public on how widespread and difficult it is to treat Lyme.  He chronicals the struggle that many Lyme Literate doctors face against the medical status quo when they treat Lyme as it should be.

Until Next Time,

DAVE & JONI