Time comes and goes. Lyme treatment continues. I had a rather troublesome spot over the previous two weeks when starting my current antibiotic duo. The "Brain Weasels":every paranoid, self-denigrating, depressed thought I have ever had seemingly broke through the jail into which my mind had imprisoned them, and danced morosely through my mind and into my consciousness. Medications were adjusted and eventually, I was returned to a state of equanimity.  This medication combo works more in the brain. I am told that the Brain Weasels are the result of misfiring neurons from the inflammation of the Lyme die-off. It is,to say the least,very unpleasant. 

   Today the sun was shining and I felt well enough, after morning coffee and perusal of the Internet, to walk around outside to view the gardens. The Chief has been the one doing most of the planting and maintaining. I would show you pictures, but I still have not located the digital camera I put away for safe keeping. 

   The grass is thick and dewy, the result of the abundance of rain and humidity we've experienced in New England over the last few weeks. Near the Egyptian Mint patch surrounding the apple tree, Asiatic Lilies have been planted. Of the seven bulbs, three have thrust through the soil. One has little buds the size of whole cashews crowning it's spiky leaves. The irises are past their prime but the lupines are still sporting sword length plumes of that pinky brown color lupines do so well.  Phlox is heading up with buds, the promise of fragrance apparent. The garlic patch is well-mulched, but still had grass sprouting within the rows. I laid down my canes and settled on a hummock of old straw near the outermost row and started to weed. The Chief joined me and weeded three rows in the time it took me to do one. These are very short rows, and was slowed by the cumbersome feel of my body. Still, I found pleasure in reaching in and deftly removing the stalks of grass, sparing the growing heads from the stunting strangulation of the grass roots. I worked a little more in the bed of dill and lettuce adjacent to the garlic patch. The dill has been stunted after surviving a late,unanticipated frost.  They won't last long enough to make pickles when the cucumbers are ready, so we will harvest them and buy dill from the Farmer's Market when the time comes for pickling. 

   I did not pickle in 2012. I wasn't well enough to do so. In 2011, taking Percocet and being in pain, I did pickle with the assistance of a friend. Alas, some of the cucumbers were too big and my judgement none too keen is using them and forcing them into the jar when packing, so a great deal of the batch was lost. I am determined to pickle this year because this is the only culinary way I can nurture my family and show my love. I want to pickle, because it is something I enjoy.  I experience great pleasure at seeing the gleaming glass jars with their brassy, shiny tops and rings in my pantry closet.  I relish the compliments from my family when they receive my gift. It makes me happy.

   I am so much healthier than I was two years ago. For this I give thanks. Their is, potentially, more health, more function, for me to recover and so I continue with Lyme treatment no matter how ignominious it makes me feel. For I am lovingly supported by my husband, my family and friends. They bear me up when I am ashamed of my weakness. They infuse me with determination to persevere. I am lucky to have such love and caring and compassion surrounding me.

Blessings abound

It's raining outside, still, and I am having beef soup for breakfast with fresh spinach. It is tasty and savory, the broth satisfying. I  did not relish another breakfast of tortilla with soy butter or eggs or tofu custard. The fresh spinach, heated gently in the broth, is bright green and still pulsing with life. I am eating a most enjoyable breakfast. 

I am off the Tetracycline and taking two new antibiotics, a half pill of each every other night. I was told to start them during the day and the first few doses of that were detrimental to functioning at work. I am told that this combination of medications helps to work with the bugs in my brain, and so the herxe is not unlike a precipitous drop into depression for several hours. And then anxiety rears it's ugly head and I am faced with any number of worries that my mind won't stop re-playing. It has been worst at bedtime. To counteract that onslaught, I am playing soft music in my bedroom at the hour of sleep,interlaced with the sounds of nature. So far it soothes me and calms the anxiety away as I focus on the sounds. Hopefully, by taking the meds at bedtime, this will still work and my brain can whir and twitch the night away in dreams.

Time to dress and face the day! Blessings abound.

Sometimes I wonder why I have pain.  I know the biology of pain. I am aware that a tick bit me and unleashed a hailstorm of twisted spirochetes into my blood stream. Said spirochetes have drilled and filled their way into many parts of body, permeating me from the cellular level into the complexly developed organism that is me. Unfortunately, the simple reason doesn't always find me feeling satisfied.  How could something so minute as a bacteria wreak so much havoc on a living system?

I see examples all around me in nature. Yet I cannot accept that this is the explanation applying to my complicated mammalian self. 

Sometimes I wonder if I have taken on some of the pain of every person for whom I've cared. I've been a nurse for thirty years now. Before I knew how to ground myself and protect myself from the energy of others, I thought I felt so much of what they were suffering. I wanted to take their pain away, fix their problem. As I've aged, I've learned that I cannot take away the pain of another.  I can, though, be a witness to their suffering and offer what I can to help. Sometimes the only thing I can do is stand or sit with them and let them know that I am listening. That all my attention and empathy is theirs in that moment. It is hard work to stay with some one while they work out their own soothing. It is a simple act to stay with someone who is working out how they will cope. 

I have a teacher who teaches," Simple never easy."  She is so right about that. As a human being I want to fix to do, to attend to all the details to the point of distraction. Besides, if my suffering is more than basic biology, isn't it somehow more noble? How totally fatuous of me!  

I used to dissociate from my feelings, both physical and emotional. I still do it sometimes, but I am more and more present in my own body of experience. I am observing the situations that happen to me in most moments and seeing that not all things are caused by me or punishment. It is cause and effect, energy changing. I am still working this out. I feel as if I am on the verge of an important revelation about myself. Like a word on the tip of my tongue, I cannot say it.  It eludes me through no fault of my own. Evidently, it is not the right time for revelation. It is the time for listening to bird song, smelling the lilacs through the open window and avoiding the sun so it does not sicken me. 

Blessings abound.