These two stories about my little sister Lark come from 2nd hand experience in one instance and as 1st hand experience in the other. Naturally as the reader you don’t have to believe either. In many ways for my sister our family it’s kind of hard to believe ourselves what has happened to her over the course of her life. The first story happened on some unknown date when my ten or so year old sister was at her friend Shayna’s house across the street with a jar of change during a lightning storm. She decided to run back to our house carrying a metal jar of change and according to Lark tripped over the jar of change while avoiding a lightning bolt that struck about 2-3 feet in front of her. If she hadn’t tripped she would’ve been struck. How is this possible? This is Lark. The second story happened on Sunday July fourth of 2010 during a military band concert at Wolf Trap. Our family is peacefully enjoying a bombastic performance when Lark is bitten by a tick. “Mom, I got a tick on me.” “Okay, um I don’t have any tweezers on me sorry, just try to flick it off.” “Mom what are the chances of getting lime disease?” My older brother: “Like 1 in 100,000.” My mom: “You’ll be fine Lark.” I specifically remember laughing inside while thinking this is Lark we’re talking about. Lark got Lyme disease and according to the American Lyme Disease Association there was about a 1 in 10,000 chance in Virginia of getting Lyme disease in 2008 which was probably around the same chance in 2010. In the ensuing months Lark got a rash, started feeling aches in her joints, felt tired and found it difficult to concentrate in school. She asked to be homeschooled for the rest of the year in order to keep from falling further behind and to study in a more comfortable environment. Lark’s medication took a toll on her as she became more and more tired in the increasing dosage as fall wore into winter.
Five facts, first my family comes standard with eight very dependant yet oddly proud individuals. Second, bad fortune comes to people who handle it badly and it comes to people who handle it well. Third, Lark currently has eighty-one allergies, fourth has Lyme disease and fifth has scoliosis. Lark came into this world with a heart murmur and for weeks my parents worried about her chances of survival. Today at sixteen years old her heart not only works but she has at least twenty swimming and soccer trophies in her room. She has a changing diet regiment that she needs to keep track of but constantly asks my mom about in order to keep her allergies in check. She continues to get good grades, mostly A’s and some B’s . Even though she’s homeschooled she’s continued to keep close with her friends. Lark’s allergies include: gluten, eggs, dairy, soy, all vegetables in the nightshade family such as potatoes and tomatoes, and water. Yes water she gets rashes after staying in water for over an hour to include her own sweat. It was torture for her to wear a back brace for her scoliosis during field hockey practice in the summer of 09’. It captured all the sweat and smeared it against her skin and would feel a constant itching during practice on top of the physical exertion. When she took off the brace her skin was a supple red.
From my experience Lark has shown little outward signs of complaining or denial to her conditions. On the surface of things and on a day to day basis it seems like my family has had a harder time accepting Lark’s conditions than she has. My dad for instance being self conscious about his weight gain, and being in his early fifties is wary about everyone eating the same thing and if possible in the same amounts at the dinner table as not to feel like he’s getting to lazy. Typical mid-life crisis reaction. Lark most often comes to the table with specific foods she can eat for that day’s rotation and on occasion having already eaten those foods and brings a snack just to eat something with everyone. A good dinner happens when my dad remembers she has eighty-one allergies and says nothing about it. Granted it’s not all spite against Lark in that my dad sometimes makes my mom angry while slapping her with one more scoop of tater-tots to try and close the gap between his and her meal size. There have been discussions about whether Lark was merely overreacting to certain sensations and thought she had allergies. This to our family was not out of the range for consideration in that Lark does at times overreact. One evening while Lark was about nine years old playing with my other two sisters Annalee and Mary Alice, Annalee got the idea to pretend that she had some sort of heart spasm and keeled over to play dead. Lark fell for it very hard, too hard to the point when Annalee opened her eyes and screamed “gotcha!” Lark went into some sort of panic attack. When they got home Lark was on the bed breathing and moaning incessantly that she was going to die. My brother Isaac and my sister where both by her side telling her she was overreacting and had to calm down. It was probably over half an hour when Lark then started chanting “I want to go the hospital, I want to go the hospital” We as her siblings could do nothing but look at her and worry if she really did need to go at that point. So my seventeen year old self called 911 and told them my sister was hyperventilating. My mom and dad strolled around the corner from their walk to see an ambulance and a fire-truck in front of our house. They ran through the front door to a small child being calmed down by three large firemen and three low eyed and slightly skeptical siblings sitting on the couch in the next room. “Wow Lark I really must’ve scared you.”
Lark also tends to over-laugh to the point where she draws attention to herself regardless if she wants it or not. She is over-laughing because no one is laughing as hard as she is at the thing she is laughing about. The reasons vary from her friend saying butter-knife in a funny way to…most of the times I have no idea what she’s laughing about. So at least I sit there wondering if this is some sort of a ploy to receive attention in a family of six children at the dinner table or if she really is this helpless. In our family we’re all proud in our own ways. I believe in every family there is a certain social real estate were every sibling must stake their share and build as high as they can without overlapping on their siblings property. Having siblings in a way can be difficult in that you don’t want to be copied, followed, teased, or feel like you’re just an extension of your brother or sister. And In a family with six kids this is sort of exacerbated in that you got to be your person or else you’re a copycat. So in the beginning of Lark’s Allergies it was normal to hear that she was allergic to just eggs, but it became harder as another allergy came on top of another. Lark is now allergic to potatoes and tomatoes, oh and just now she is allergic to soy too, and newsflash she is now allergic to water. It came on as a challenge to us in that no one else in our family or immediate family was even close to having as many allergies as lark did. But as the months wore on it was becoming apparent that for whatever ounce of annoyance it caused to our family it weighed a pound to Lark. Every comment about Lark perhaps overreacting or faking her allergies left a blank expression on her face at the dinner table while she was eating the most normal food she could in front of us probably her sweat potatoes, rice crackers, ham and green beans.
I came home one evening last fall when I was in a bad spot myself in school and in other areas. Lark was in the midst of her new homeschooling experience, her major allergies were present, and her Lyme disease medication made it hard for her to stay awake. I was in the living room and saw on her computer a few lines in what must have been random writing but what looked like a journal entry for someone who doesn’t normally keep a journal. Only glancing over a few lines, it was clear that even she didn’t know what was going on or if she was faking it. This was something that hit me hard. As I looked further it was not only us as a family but her own friends that didn’t understand either, not even the doctors fully understood, no one understood. For a sixteen year old just being pulled out of school for a whole year, not being able to eat anything you used to and worst of all not knowing what was going and feeling alienated.
As the spring came things changed. It was then the doctors declared that she had eighty-one allergies. She was placed on a on rotary diet to try and confuse Lark’s body somehow into accepting some of her old allergies and it came to a point where I had no idea what she could and couldn’t eat anymore and the thought of even trying to guess daunted me. The things I for sure she could eat on a day to day basis like apples were something she could only eat next Tuesday. What? It was a liver problem according to the doctors and it seemed like these allergies must all somehow be related to one. At this time Lark’s Lyme disease, after a lot of medicine and drowsy after effects, began to disappear. She was more energetic. And during the spring something surprising happened, Lark was able to eat her first and worst allergic food: eggs without reacting. It was an oddly spring like allergy to lose. There have been several signs that treatment is working. She has also had more friends come over as the spring turned into summer. Lark still over-laughs and though and still overreacts but it has been a pleasure to see things get better for her and for us to at-least know that she isn’t over-smiling.
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