#lyme blog

[shaylaaphressa]

http://fightagainstlyme.tumblr.com/

New blog! And themed! 0.o This will be my Lyme blog, in which I will ramble on about Lyme stories and support others who suffer from the same illness. Check it out? Brand new, so not much...

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Big Front + Procrastination = a Dirty Aquarium

I have a humble little aquarium with 2 fish, Bubba the loach and Thing 2 the neon tetra. This aquarium is in need of a good clean/needs some maintenance done on it and I've been trying to do it all week, but things have been coming up, so I pushed it to "this weekend" well, a big front moved in this weekend. Yesterday I decided to get my horror movie on and today I was dead set on cleaning it up, but I fell asleep and now I'm just not up to it. At all. I hate spoon shortages.

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The Foot Adventure Continutes

I saw the guy the foot doctor referred me to today and he was really nice, which is one of the things I think is really important in a doctor. He took time to explain what was going on, what he was thinking about what was happening/had happened in my foot and what we should do about it and, this is my favorite, when he was examining me he was really careful with my foot. He figured out where the "sensitivity zone" was aka, where it hurt really bad to touch, started and stopped and just made sure to avoid that area until it was absolutely necessary. I had a doctor who did the opposite, he'd push a pull at my joints when they hurt to make them hurt more. I hated it and I really really don't like him. He went through my history, I don't think he was expecting it to be that long, and we talked for a while and he said that the best thing for my case was injections. They wouldn't be in my foot, that'd be terrible, they're going to be in my lower spine which is kinda terrifying, but the hope is that they'll reset the pain nerves for my lower right half meaning that not only will my foot be fixed, but my thigh will be too. He's also given the go ahead for some physical therapy, so I'll be able to see some of my old friends again on my road to getting better. Over all I think the visit went really well, I'm nervous at the idea of getting an injection anywhere (not a fan of shots) but if it fixes things than it'll be worth the discomfort.. 

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Foot Update

I set up an appointment for the 23rd, but my foot is steadily getting worse because I wasn't taking it seriously. My sister pointed out that I'm always on painkillers and dulled to pain, so if I wasn't I probably wouldn't be able to walk on it due to the pain. And the pain is getting a lot worse, I'm having trouble sleeping and I'm going through my break through pain killers because I just can't take it. Right now I'm focusing on staying off of it and keeping it elevated. It sucks to go from being able to run around more to back to not being able to move around much at all. But hey, this means I can watch a lot of Bonanza and such. ;)

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Herxing on My Mind

I'm herxing and at first I didn't realize that's what was going on, I actually thought I had a new symptom or that I was getting worse because it was in my brain and I haven't had to deal with that before. My brain fog is really bad, I can't find words or put them together really well, my headaches and memory are worse. It's pretty awful to be honest, but fortunately I found a tv station that plays old tv shows like Bonanza and The Rifleman. TV is always good for herxing, bad pain days and when your brain isn't working, so it's pretty much the perfect plan.

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Telling People in Person

If you read a few posts back, you'll see that I got some epic good news recently and most of my friends and family read this blog and found out said new either this way or by word of mouth. But there are a few who didn't know, and I'm the one who's gotten to tell them, sometimes in person, that I'm going to get better and it is awesome. Today I got to tell a woman who is honestly one of the kindest women you'll ever meet, she's so giving and such an example of Christ's love it's humbling. Anyways, when my sister and I were leaving her house she mentioned that I looked good and I realized that she wasn't on my facebook so she probably didn't read this, so I asked if she'd read this, so I asked if she'd heard the good news and when she said she hadn't I got to tell her myself. In person. She was so happy you guys, she had tears in her eyes. Dang it, now I'm crying. She told me to take as long as I needed to heal when my sister gave her the time line and she, the woman, hugged me so tightly and I hugged back it was just great. She just looked at me and was talking about how great it was and how it was such a gift and then she looked me in the eye and was like "you are so strong" and I almost lost it. We chatted a little bit about how this news was life changing and I left knowing that she was genuinely happy for me.

This last Sunday I got to go to my parents' church again, the main reason I was there was to hear my dad sing, but the more I chatted with people the more I realized that not everyone knew the news and I made it my mission to fix that. I spent the visiting time and after the sermon when people were either visiting, getting ready to go home, or helping to clean up going from person to person and telling them the news. I started with the people I knew were praying for me or had missed me last time, though I know I missed people again, and then I just waited for people to come and find me. The reactions ranged on how people react to things; the man who hugged me so tightly had tears in his eyes again and gave me a huge a hug and other people gave me a huge grin and told me "that's wonderful!" both are genuine, but the latter would always throw me for a loop. Eh, makes up different types for a world.

I got to tell 2 of my really good friends, 1 in person and 1 on the phone and they were elated. Had it been a chick flick, we all would have screamed and bounced up and down.

All different reactions (the one tonight gets the longest story because it happened tonight, okay), but I got to do the same awesome thing - tell them the best news of my life in person. I got to see the look on their faces and celebrate with them and it's great. 

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Other Medical Stuff

In all my excitement about the good news, I forgot to talk about the med changes and the new symptoms. He only put me on 5 new medications this time, which is a nice change from the usual 10 or so, and most of them are for my head. I've been having really bad headaches, sometimes it feels like it's almost constant, but I have to be careful with how much Excedrin I take because it can damage my liver if I start taking it hand over fist. The headaches range between annoying to crippling and sometimes my vision will black out and I'll crumble down to the floor. These are not seizures. I know what those feel like and I never loose consciousness. I crumble down because my head is pounding and I can't see. It's only happened a few times, but each time was sudden and scarey as hell. My other symptoms are kind of connected; when I'm reading, especially if I'm tired, the letters will move around on the page and sometimes replace each other. When I'm writing letters will replace each other, like I could ask you to spell "still" "s-t-i-l-l" and then I'd write something like "s-t-j-l-l" and even see it spelled correctly when I looked at it. So I'd write a paragraph and then come back to unreadable gibberish, which is extremely frustrating for someone who likes to write things by hand. Or who thinks they have to write letters by hand...no, you can use a computer to do that, it's the 21st century. Oh, a random thing, while we were in New Orleans I banged up my foot. We dove off the sidewalk and my foot landed half in and half on a crack. At the time we thought my shoe had taken the blow but nope, it was my foot and now, coming up on a month later, it still hurts really bad. I have 2 of my toes taped together which helps, but the sole of my foot still hurts when I put a lot of weight on it. I'm thinking about talking about with my main doc, the only thing that's stopping me is that it's never gotten swollen, so it's probably not broken or anything super serious. As always, thanks for your support and prayers, they mean a lot to me.

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Turning a Corner?

So it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was actually pretty great. After going through the usual exchange of boring medical stuff, we both came to the same conclusion: I've probably turned a corner in my treatment. Let that sink in for a second. I turned the freaking corner! For those of you going "what the heck does that mean?" It's a pretty big deal. It's when you start to see the fruit of your labor and, in my case, the finish line. After everything I've done to get better, I'm finally feeling better and gaining ground. There's still a lot of ground between me and the finish line and it won't be easy, I've still got to deal with herx and all the other fun Lyme things, but I'm shooting for a goal I can see now. There's no stopping me now.