No Weapon Formed (Boaz Brown)

by Stimpson, Michelle

  Whatever the reason, I was thankful. He and Jonathan assembled Seth’s Big Wheel and took him outside to test it despite the cool temperatures.

  Momma Miller must have coddled Zoe nonstop because she was clingier than usual, not wanting to be contained by her swing or the playpen. I searched my closet full of baby gifts and produced a harness that I hadn’t ever used. I strapped her in it, slung her on my back, and she was full of peace and joy facing the world from five feet off the ground.

  This new perspective, as well as me singing softly to her, kept her entertained while I finished our Christmas dinner.

  Stelson sat up in bed and laughed when he saw Zoe’s newfound orientation. “Must be nice.”

  “I guess so.”

  I set his lemonade and plate of food on the nightstand. Turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes and green beans, though not nearly as much as he would normally eat. “Need anything else?”

  “You,” he said tenderly, caressing my arm.

  I froze. My heart had grown numb from its survival-mode default position on top of the callouses formed by weeks of abrasive comments.

  He asked, “Can you come and sit with me for a while if you have time later?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m sorry. About everything. I know you deserve better, but I didn’t have it to give. I still don’t. And I’m afraid maybe I won’t ever be able to love you and the kids with all of me again.”

  “Don’t say that, Stelson.” I left the room so he wouldn’t see me crying.

  If this wasn’t temporary, I wasn’t sure I could survive. A sick husband? Two kids? Hustling back to work so I could support all four of us in between what would probably be countless doctor visits? What if he had another seizure? What if he went to jail for buying pain meds on the streets?

  If we were elderly, if we were both retired with no kids at home so we could focus on one another that would be different. No one imagines spending a good chunk of their lives as a caregiver for a spouse. At our age, we were supposed to be vibrant and mobile and hopeful. Not a wife serving her husband Christmas dinner in bed at six o’clock in the evening because he was too fatigued to join his family at the table.

  You couldn’t tell me this was the good, hopeful, prosperous plan of God for our lives.

  Peaches and Quinn would only be in town through the twenty-eighth. I wanted to spend time with her, but I couldn’t very well ditch my husband to go hang with my best friend. She did the next best thing by coming over to our house the day before they left.

  She must have known I was completely spent. She kept the kids occupied while I took a bath. Helped me get them in bed, then helped me catch up on cleaning and laundry—something only the closest of friends would do. And then she ordered me to turn on my laptop. “We are going online and we are going to find out for sure what’s wrong with Stelson,” she declared.

  “The doctors can’t—”

  She gave me the hand. “Don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for anybody who stayed in school long enough to rack up two hundred thousand dollars in student loans. But I’m telling you, our country’s medical system was hijacked when the Rockefellers started funding certain medical schools.”

  I glanced toward the ceiling. “Umm…what difference does it make who the Rockefellers donated to?”

  She clicked her cheek. “They only donated to medical schools they deemed certified,” she held up finger-quotes. “And the only certified schools were the ones that would teach doctors to recommend pharmaceuticals using their supplies. Of course, the more patentable drugs prescribed, the more money comes in. Everybody in the loop gets paid big time.”

  “But doesn’t the patent process and the FDA ensure that drugs—”

  I couldn’t even complete the sentence before Peaches gave me the be-for-real look and said, “Don’t drink the red Kool-Aid. Rockefeller actually created the American Medical Association despite the fact that his personal doctor practiced homeopathic medicine. Rockefeller lived to a ripe old age of 97 while the rest of us are too blind to recognize that most of what we need for healing is already available in the raw. I mean, if you get hit by a bus, by all means go to the hospital. But a lot of what ails us is curable naturally.”

  “So you’re telling me that there’s stuff growing on trees that can heal just as well as what doctors can prescribe? I mean, I know I’ve filled plenty of prescriptions that actually helped me.”

  “First of all, if prescription drugs actually healed, the whole system would collapse. Really, any large-scale man-made system is going to have corruption. You’re an educator. You know it’s not right that every child in Texas has to pass a test in order to graduate, right?”

  “Agreed.”

  “And you said yourself that, often, principals get hired and fired based on who they know rather than how well they can run a school, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Same thing with the field of medicine. Doesn’t mean every doctor is greedy, but some are. Now, some drugs are fine. Antibiotics are not the devil so long as you don’t overuse them and you know what caused the infection so you won’t have to use them again. But you usually need a natural supplement to help your body absorb the drugs or to fight off side effects—don’t even get me started on side effects. Really, most doctors are trained to alleviate symptoms. If they actually cured people, we wouldn’t need them or drugs as much.

  “Second, have you ever tried any natural solutions?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I mean, I’ve tried a few “old-wives’ tales”-type remedies here and there.”

  “Did they work?”

  Poking out my lips helped me think better. Momma had a few concoctions, but Grandmomma Smith was the do-it-yourself-healthcare queen. “Well, I do remember once, when I fell and skinned my knee racing down the street with my cousins, my grandmother mixed up something with what appeared to be oil, tea, and some other stuff she didn’t let me see. She slathered it on my knee. That stuff worked so fast, even as a child I knew it was amazing.”

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ about. She probably used coconut oil, tea tree oil. Beeswax to make it stay in place. Way better than over-the-counter ointment.”

  “Why don’t doctors prescribe natural remedies if they’re so effective?”

  “Because you can’t patent what God made, and what can’t be patented doesn’t make much money.”

  This whole conversation reminded me of banter from Daddy’s lips. He was the only one I knew who was completely skeptical of the government, despite the fact that he worked at the post office for over thirty years.

  “Okay. We’ve tried everything else. Might as well go underground,” I conceded, raising my laptop screen, pressing the power button and wondering why my best friend hadn’t written a book yet. I was as impressed as I could be without actually seeing this whole natural thing work on a case more serious than a skinned knee.

  Peaches navigated to a website that looked more like a place for a witch doctor than two Christian women seeking God’s herbs. “This is spooky.”

  “You are so brainwashed. The system has taught you well that if it didn’t come from man, it’s evil. Quite the opposite is true. But don’t worry, girl, Peaches is here to set the record straight.”

  “Look at that woman!” I pointed to the top of the screen, where a woman in clothes that looked like curtains smiled back at us. I guess she was our age, in her forties, probably living on an island with no electricity. “She’s a hippie.”

  “She’s not a hippie. She’s sixty-three and runs two miles a day.”

  My mouth dropped. “Nuh uh! She is not sixty-three!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I exclaimed, “Okay, if she was black, I could see it. This is gonna sound wrong, but a white woman’s skin looking that young at sixty-three is not normal.”

  “Well, white don’t crack, either, if you stay away from foolishness,” Peaches surmised. She selected the word “timeline” from the pag
e menu. “This tool will help us start at the beginning. When did Stelson first begin to have symptoms?”

  “Um…a few weeks after school started,” I said.

  “Not good enough. Pull out your calendar.”

  This girl was not playing with me. I pushed away from the table. “Be right back.”

  Stelson stirred as I rummaged through my purse looking for my phone. “Peaches still here?”

  “Yes. We’re online researching your symptoms. She thinks we need to look at natural remedies.”

  “I’m open to anything,” he mumbled.

  I walked to his bedside and kissed him.

  “What was that for?”

  “Not sure. Guess talking with Peaches has given me hope.”

  “Works for me.”

  Peaches and I dragged and clicked on the timeline. For a bohemian website, the tool was quite sophisticated. The teacher in me thought the gadget might come in handy for helping students keep outlines as they read.

  She took our search to the next level. “Now, do you use a debit card or credit card for most of your purchases? Do you keep receipts?”

  “Yeah. Why do they want to know all my business?”

  “We’re going to look through your purchases to see if you bought anything out-of-the ordinary or forgot to mention something on the calendar. Your checkbook is a map to your life.”

  “Are you serious?” I chided.

  “As serious as your husband having a seizure. Come on. Open the checking account, chop-chop.”

  With Peaches nipping at my heels, I turned the laptop toward me and opened our checking account to search for unusual purchases. “Nothing we haven’t already put on the timeline,” I said. “What do they want next, my mother’s maiden name?”

  “No. But if you have your family menu for the weeks leading up to the onset of symptoms, I’ll attach the file.”

  My goodness!

  Once we’d plugged in all the information, Peaches submitted our case for analyzation. “Done. I gotta get back to Momma’s. We should hear something in the next hour or so—depends on their holiday schedule.”

  “An hour?! Why can’t it just spit out a diagnosis when you enter a few symptoms?”

  “Because it’s not run like a mainstream doctor’s office. I pay a pretty penny for my subscription to this site. These timelines are actually reviewed by real people who are passionate about natural medicine. I’ll text you as soon as I get the email.”

  She gathered her belongings and hugged me good-bye. “You coming to Momma’s tomorrow?”

  “I hate to see you go.” What an understatement. Peaches had been a lifeline for me that week.

  “Promise you and Stelson will bring the kids up soon?”

  “As soon as he’s better…”

  “I’ll change my sheets the minute I get back to Philly, then.”

  Her vote of confidence swept from her lips to my soul. She was so certain that my husband would be fine. I clung to her faith because mine was nearly depleted.

  I slept as peacefully as possible with Stelson tossing and turning next to me as though he couldn’t get comfortable.

  Flat on my back, I stared at the ceiling wondering what God was thinking about this situation. What was the conversation in heaven? In the spirit realm? What were the angels telling the demons and vice versa?

  For Seth’s first birthday, Momma had given us a framed illustration of a little boy praying with his eyes closed. Right behind the boy were silhouettes of majestic, towering angels listening and watching intently. The cut-out matte showed Luke 4:10. “For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee”.

  Personally, I wasn’t feeling very kept. I felt loose. Out there. What’s up with my angels? They on break?

  I nearly jumped when my phone vibrated on the nightstand. You’re funny, Lord.

  The screen showed one text message.

  From Peaches: EUREKA!!!!!

  Chapter 27

  I fell trying to get out of bed and get to a place where I could freely talk to Peaches. “Ow! Shoot!”

  “Shondra?” Stelson asked.

  “I’m all right,” I answered from the floor.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I just got a text from Peaches. She says she has the answer.”

  He switched on the light. “Call her.”

  I wasn’t expecting him to jump on the trail so quickly. “I’m all over it.” I snuggled up next to my husband and dialed Peaches.

  The phone didn’t complete one full ring. “Shondra, you are not going to believe this.”

  “Hold on, let me put you on speaker so Stelson can hear.” I pressed the corresponding icon. “We’re here.”

  She busted out, “Lyme disease.”

  Stelson and I waited silently, which I assumed meant he was as clueless about what she’d just said as me.

  Peaches continued, “You remember when Seth got lost and Stelson was looking for him?”

  I replied with, “Uh huh,” although I wondered what Seth’s disappearance had to do with Stelson’s illness.

  “Lyme disease is caused by the bite of an infected tick, carried by deer. North Texas is in the danger zone,” she explained.

  Stelson grabbed his phone from his nightstand. When the Google search engine page popped up on his screen, I knew he was already off to the races.

  Stelson leaned in to ask, “What do we do now?”

  “Take the test. But you don’t want to take it at any old lab. There’s a list of recommended labs whose equipment is sensitive enough to detect what we’re looking for.”

  Isn’t a lab a lab?

  “They start you on a round of antibiotics. Now, this late in the game, I’d say you should probably take them in addition to the natural therapies since this thing already has a head start.”

  “What’s the prognosis?” Stelson asked.

  “It can be a very long recovery, but you can beat it, my white brother from another mother.”

  Peaches promised to send over the results and recommendations via email. We thanked her profusely for her time and for helping us in all matters bohemian.

  “After this, you’ll be one of us,” she said. “Night y’all.”

  Lyme disease. Since Peaches first mentioned the name, I thought she’d meant “lime” disease, which sounded like fruit poisoning, if that’s even possible. We Googled it and found a website with more information.

  “Did you see a tick on your body?” I quizzed as we sat up in bed viewing the images together on my laptop. This is gross.

  “No, but some people never see it.” He pointed to someone’s testimonial on screen and read out loud, “I…never… saw… a… tick.”

  The way he said it, like a new reader tackling a Dick and Jane book, cracked me up.

  “What’s so funny?” he said.

  “You sound like Seth.”

  “Seth can read?”

  “Yeah. He wanted to tell you.”

  “Why didn’t he?”

  “He tried.” Rather than make my husband feel worse, I softened the truth. “You didn’t feel like talking at the time.”

  Stelson covered his eyes with one hand. And he cried. We both cried, hoping the worst was behind us.

  First thing in the morning, we tried to schedule an appointment with the lab, but Stelson’s insurance said the request had to be written up by his doctor in order for them to cover it.

  His doctor seemed quite annoyed that an online website had caught what he’d missed. Nonetheless, he conceded that Lyme disease was a definite possibility, given Stelson’s day in the woods. The lesions, he surmised, might have been from a previous Lyme infection. This most recent exposure might have triggered a more potent reaction.

  As was routine, he prescribed antibiotics immediately, even before the diagnosis was confirmed, because with this disease, every day counts.

  When Stelson and I got the results from the lab a few weeks later, we clung to one another and
thanked God for a definitive answer. He’d tested positive for Lyme disease.

  Chapter 28

  As Peaches had forewarned, the recovery process thus far had been slow, even with the antibiotics. Every few days, she’d ask me how he was doing. “He seems better.”

  “Nuh uh. You need to make a list of all his symptoms and chart how he’s feeling every day. Scale of one to ten, ten being horrible. This will also help make sure no co-infections are starting and sneaking up on him.”

  I railed, “You’re making this sound like a full-time job.”

  “LaShondra.”

  Her pause alarmed me. “What?”

  “Taking care of Stelson is your new full-time job. I am soooo not trying to scare you. God did not give us the spirit of fear. I do want you to be aware, though. He’s not totally out of the woods. There’s a huge cloud of suspicion and political mystery around Lyme disease.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ll send you the links. Call me after you’ve read the articles.”

  My computer dinged with her incoming message. Within a few clicks, I was dumbfounded. The titles of the first two articles alone caught my attention: Lyme Disease Biowarfare. Diseased Ticks from Government Lab.

  If Peaches hadn’t been so helpful already, I probably would have dismissed them. But she’d been right about everything else so far, and she had opened my eyes to the fact that I needed to open my eyes even more when it came to trusting my health to a man-made system.

  I was almost late getting Seth from school. Couldn’t tear my eyes away from the screen long enough to take a breath and process. Though no one in an official capacity had owned up to it, there was a theory floating around that Lyme disease was a man-made disease. An experiment in biowarfare gone wrong, which explained why something as complex as Lyme disease was officially “discovered” in 1975 despite the fact that ticks and deer have been around for centuries. The map of Lyme disease’s progression across the United States also showed the heaviest concentration in areas nearest the lab, heading westward.