June 30, 2012

• Update

    I've tried to post a couple of times, but fatigue and myalgia got in my way. I had a thick case of brain fog and would stare at the screen. The words in my head a moment before vanished into the air.

     I started the antibiotic regimen eight days ago. My fatigue feels worse. The brain fog is not as bad as it was on the first day. However, on the days I take the amoxicillin, I do notice an increase. I'm also noticing some increase in light sensitivity. I can't get my computer screens dark enough. There's always some aspect of glare. I've ordered some sunglasses from www.noir-medical.com. They filter our infra-red and blue light spectrum. I'm looking forward to the glare reduction, but feel a bit embarrassed that I'll be wearing dark glasses. This adventure into the signs my body is sending me leads me once more back into that childhood morass of telling my mother I had:insert symptom here and my mother telling me I was not sick. I came to doubt that what I was experiencing was Real when the biggest authority in my life was telling me I wasn't sick, I was faking it, it was all in my head. I learned one other lesson, in addition to my inability to accurately read what my body was telling me, I had the will power to make it go away. If I just tried harder, it would all go away. 

     I've discovered, once again, that no matter how hard I try to ignore things, or be a " well person with symptoms" as an old teacher taught, that some states of being, no matter how hard I try to ignore them or will them away, are not figments of my imagination, but real states of disease in which one needs treatment.  I am fortunate to have stumbled upon a doctor who has offered me an explanation for my state of health that has the possibility of improvement. As confused as I was when he told me i had Lyme or a Lyme-like illness, I am feeling more sure that I am doing the right thing. And I'm angry that my mother taught me to doubt myself in so many ways, more than just that I was reading my body signs wrongly.  It's a sadness more than the old anger. Because it is Chronic Lyme, and so difficult to diagnose, I don't know that I would have been more persistent trying to find an explanation for my symptoms. If it hadn't been for the presence of women in my life who have strived to improve their own state of health, perhaps I would still be trying to push my way through Fibromyalgia to try to be a better person.

   Brain fog is setting in and the glare of the computer screen no longer tolerable. Blessings abound.

  • 10:50 am
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