Joy Stevens

Background

About Joy Stevens

Curve balls. Get thrown enough of them and soon you're swinging for the fence. That's how I became a naturopathic physician specializing in chronic illnesses and Lyme disease. Previously, I loved being a petroleum engineer, figuring out how things work. I enjoyed being a lawyer and helping people. With the regulatory environment of the petroleum industry, the two professions melded well. Then the Lyme bug bit and it all came to a screeching halt. Curve ball. I was infected as a child. One of my earliest memories was of a bull's eye rash. In my mind's eye, I can still see my little girl finger pointing to the concentric circles on my leg, thinking "that is a really weird bug bite," and wondering if I should tell my mom. I didn't. It was the late 1960s so it wouldn't have mattered anyway. What followed was decades of odd, unsolved, health problems that became debilitating in my fourth decade. Eventually, I developed a nystagmus which sent me down the path of multiple sclerosis (MS). However, that diagnosis never sat well with me. I researched MS and it just wasn't adding up. Finally, a blogger comment in a newspaper made me realize I had Lyme and not MS. Curve ball. Unfortunately, the wrong treatment for the wrong disease left me significantly sicker. I had to quit work in order to focus on healing. Two years later, days before New Year's, I suddenly realized I was free to do whatever I wanted to do and out of the blue I realized I wanted to go to medical school."Where the heck did that come from?" Curve ball. Within weeks I was working on my prerequisites and by fall I was starting classes at Bastyr University. Now I am a naturopathic physician. I still figure out how things work and I still help people. I enjoy chronic illnesses and determining WHY someone is ill rather than just treating symptoms. I am especially interested in helping those with Lyme disease because no one should have to go through what I went through.