I grew up on a fully organic farm in Sonora, California — golden foothill country, just outside Yosemite, where the land was clean and wild and beautiful. No chemicals. No sprays. Just rich soil, open pasture, creek water, and animals.

It was an idyllic childhood.

And somewhere in that idyll — in the tall grass, on the back of a tick — something entered my body that quietly opened a door.

Lyme disease. Childhood. The kind that goes undiagnosed, untreated, and leaves the immune system permanently altered — a terrain made newly hospitable to things that wouldn't otherwise take hold.

That door, once opened, let other things in.

I just didn't know it yet. Not for a very long time.