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.

  I’m weathering the most recent increase of Tetracycline fairly well. My balance is more off than usual and I’m needing to use a cane inside my very small home. Usually, I can navigate inside fairly well. After all the house is seven hundred sixty square feet in toto. And there’s enough furniture for any spry senior citizen to cruise along in an effort to avoid Durable Medical Equipment to enhance ambulation. Alas I am neither Senior nor spry, and so I use my cane somewhat reluctantly because swerving into the gun cabinet and the cat box both have intolerable results. 

   But those aren’t unexpected side effects. The unexpected side effects are what a friend of mine describes as “glimpses of wellness.’ The first unexpected side effect was weight loss. I knew that in theory, one should lose weight on the carbohydrate sparing diet which is part of treatment. But I hadn’t lost any weight for a long time. On average, I was gaining five pounds every year. After twenty years, those one hundred pounds seemed to be firmly entrenched and I had resigned myself to practicing fat acceptance. I didn’t believe my doc when he told me the Nystatin would help keep the cravings down. Imagine my surprise when he was right and the cravings did not come for me in the middle of the night or during some stressful situation. My clothing became looser. I wasn’t sure I liked the wattle that was replacing my double chin, but I was happy to find this unexpected weight loss. 

   A more recent unexpected side effect is that I care more about my appearance. I’m enjoying wearing clothing again that is not a t-shirt and baggy jeans. Or a t-shirt and sausage casing tight jeans. I finally have felt comfortable enough to throw away my sweat pants, much to my husband’s delight.   I am currently coveting a pair of Frye boots that a friend has up for sale.  I’ve wanted a pair of Frye boots for a very long time. Like back to adolescence time. The price is reasonable, for a pair of these boots, but I’m still having trouble justifying the purchase. Because, after all, I do not NEED this pair of boots. I want a pair of kick-ass boots. Last night, I even dreamed I was wearing the boots. In my dream, I saw my teen-aged body, the body that was beautiful at the time, and yet I did not know it. 

   It occurs to me that the situation remains the same. I am a body that is beautiful in this time, but I do not know it.  I was at the Beauty Lounge today, having low lights put into my hair and had an opportunity to see my hair around my face,slicked back and sleek. I realized I was looking at an older, but not bad looking woman. My jaw line is less rounded and for once, I did not notice my droopy eyelids. For the first time in a long time, I could look at my face in the mirror and like how I looked. This is an unexpected side effect.

   Another unexpected side effect has been the ability to wean off the majority of my anti-depressants. As my brain is recovering, the medications I have taken for years, and expected to take for life, have become more harmful to my system than good.  I now know what brain shivers are and the hot-cold chills that accompany too much serotonin in my system.  One medication has been completely eliminated. The other medication is at one third of the dose it used to be. I was incredulous when my Lyme doc started suggesting that these medications needed to be weaned out, that they were too much. At first I put it off to his frankly stated abhorrence of one of the medications I was on. A very pricey moneymaker for the pharmaceutical company marketing it specifically for Fibromyalgia and chronic pain associated with depression. To my doc’s way of thinking, my depression is from the Lyme Disease. His assertions usually are counter to conventional thinking. With trepidation I have done as he asked and been pleasantly surprised. I have hope that I can be vibrant again. Even as I’m having pain and fatigue, I feel hopeful. That is the best unexpected side effect of all.

Blessings abound

I am in the middle of another increase in my antibiotics and may not be online much.  Things seem to be progressing well according to my doc and in between the bouts of achiness and fatigue I see glimmers of good function.

Blessings abound 

  Today is gray and damp. I am feeling the dampness, particularly on the left side of my body, the places were pain paths are well worn. My left side is like the Long Trail with peaks and valleys. I’ve hiked portions of the Long Trail when I was healthier and remember the hikes fondly. Long stretches of wooded glens with ferns and the green yellow light filtered by the summer foliage.  Then the climbs on narrow trails, mostly in sun, to the ridges of granite freckled with lichen. I remember the overnights in shelters, just my hiking partner and me. In one cabin we heard a very loud scratching and could not locate the source. It was dusk and we were stopped for the overnight at  Skylight Pond. We looked outside and all around but could not find the what we imagined to be a very large beast scrabbling at the wood. We returned into the rough hewn pine of the cabin. The sound continued. Patient listening brought our attention to a blue plastic pail. Inside the pail was a field mouse, scrabbling, scrabbling, trying to climb the sides of the pail to escape. There were little bits of husk from seeds in the pail and the story revealed itself. How we laughed at ourselves to see the thing we feared was a scared wee bit of mouse, trying to save his life. We took the pail out into the woods and gently laid it on it’s side. Mousy scampered away. 

  Later that night, as I laid on a platform of ply wood and pine, snuggled into my sleeping bag, I reflected that fear of the unknown always seems disproportionately bigger than the thing revealed. I slept well that night in the woods. The next morning we arose and continued on our journey.

Blessings abound

and it seems to be becoming a habit.  I’m in a phase with Lyme treatment when I am taking Tetracycline and we are in the increase phase. We’ve added tetracycline twenty minutes before breakfast. I can’t take any dairy for two hours before or after. That’s ok, I can make that work. I’m mostly soy based for those kinds of things right now except for some yogurt and half and half in my coffee about two times a day. The challenges to surmount are :arising early enough to take the medication and then forcing down food earlier than I normally would. I usually need to be awake an hour or so before I start to eat everything and hav usually started the morning with a cup of coffee in bed, brought to me by my loving spouse who wants to get me off to work to keep making the big bucks (insert sarcasm here).

Because I am in a ramp up phase, I am starting another herxe. Yesterday found me particularly giddy at work and having brain fog. I am fortunate that there was an extra nurse to cover and so I started my weekend early. This is good because this morning the all over aching is setting into my muscles and bones.  I’ve been watching dawn creep into the sky while waiting and then eating. Grey blue clouds shaped like sky whales float above the ridge. Nature is on the other side of the window while I sit here with technology and all it’s sharp edges.  This morning everything seems to be fraught with contrast and opposition. 

Blessings abound.

My breath mists in the air smelling like water released from earth meeting the sky trees in bud. Bird song echoes from tree to ridge to my ears, songs of birds building families wrapped in my worn, dog-chewed healing quilt, the one she said made me look as if I were an ancient priestess.  I rock, generating warmth amid the dewy morning dampness. if scars are a warrior’s beauty mark, then surely I am one of the best.

Phoebe! Phoebe! Phee! 

Songs of the chickadees. One brave sould comes to a tree near me.

Sliver of moon in the dawning sky,the ridge is glowing,

Not the near one, the far. For the first time I notice seed pearl buds on the old apple tree, the ones they played on the one Mario, the iguana claimed as her own amidst very thin,whippy branched twigs cupping the sky. 

Words keep coming. Words sweep the sky spring into mind as I name Creation around me. This morning I cannot stop the words. Somebody turned on the faucet gushing torrents of cool, descriptive words giving shape to my day. 

Stella pinned me to the bed, her sleek little body pressing, sucking the warmth from my own body, generating more until my bones ached too much from not move. She is leaden, pressing down into me. 

Catapult.

Sliver of moon, gray blue sky.  I see trees I would like to thin to see the mountain better, but I will not cut them. I cannot endure their screams. Trees hurt, too. They only want to help. 

Wait! I must not neglect the water! Water distant ,rushing and now the steely blue Canada Jay raises voice:

” I am here!Here! Hear!” Late to choir this Sunday morning. 

And now the earth is moving,moving to show the brightening. I feel the earth revolving, Fast! Faster! Fastest! yet I do not cling to her with crescent fingernails, one crescent in the sky. I am held to her with the gently embrace of gravity. The gravity of the situation and now Lora’s breath in three beats takes in scents a canine oenophile scenting the heady bouquet of morning.  Someone’s rooster crows. 

I lift my head, take my eyes away from the page and catch the subtle half moon of light kissing the mountain Mons.  So much to see,hear,smell in this dynamically quiet forest. Spinning downwards, the sun revealed lances my periphery, lights the trees, buds,birds,dog.  I will put down my pen and be, the forest silhouette blazed into my retinas.

My heart opens wide, opens wider yet,

Whistling woodstove water,

Cats grooming in the sun,

Laprador nestled on my lap.

Peaceful, 

Reminding me I work for my animals,

For us. 

Life surrounds me.

At this moment we are an island of serenity midst the tumultuous waters of life.

My heart is tender today. Be brave enough to feel.

I am reminded of how it is to be human,

The duality, the choices we make.

The circumstances thrust upon us.

Bless the family with the sudden loss of their beloved child.

Bless my sister, mourning her husband on the anniversary of his birth,

Bless my children, keep them safe.

Bless my chosen sister as she bids farewell to a beloved companion.

Bless my sisters in Lyme, making the most of their lives, reclaiming their health.

Bless me for my failings. 

Bless us all.  

I’m building up my tetracycline dose. I can take it for three days and then the Herxe worsens. I have spent my day off and today going from chair to bed. Sometimes resting, sometimes playing mindless games on the computer. Sometimes reading. I have decided to take another day off from work tomorrow because sitting up hurts as does typing. 

In the corner, Lora gnaws a bone, my friend is on her laptop quietly computing. Life flows on around me. I am a rock in the middle of the river. 

Blessings abound.

   Facebook likes to ask how I am on a seemingly daily basis, if not more.  Today I am tired, achy and happy.  Seems as though one of those things does not belong with the others, but it is possible. I’m tired from working and making the two hour long trip to see the Lyme Whisperer today for my appointment. Achy because I spent a lot of time in the car and because I am herxing. And it turns out I am a bit forgetful because I’ve eaten my dinner, being cautious not to have any dairy for two hours before dinner.  Only I forgot to take the tetracycline. So now, what do I do? I think given the scenario that skipping tonight’s dose is the way to go. Which brings me to :happy.

   I’m happy because today The Lyme Whisperer helped me redefine overwhelmed.  For me, overwhelmed has meant broken-down, crying no more strength to do anything, somebody help me find a way out because I can’t see the way myself.  Generally, the solutions are basic: eat something healthy, rest. Take a shower. Sit quietly with a cup of tea. Cuddle with LoraBora. Go for a walk. So when the Lyme Whisperer told me last week over the phone not to take the antibiotic if feeling overwhelmed, I realized in my foggy,achy state that a re-assessment was in order.  

   I have a penchant for pushing through physical pain and fatigue to do my job, meet my home obligations and take care of others. Some days with Lyme, I have all I can do to get myself out the door, with a lunch packed and my teeth brushed. My husband helps me a lot with this. He brings me coffee in bed. Lights a fire in the living room when it’s cold and I feel it more than he does. Watches the end of the driveway so I don’t back into the path of the on-coming school bus when the banks of snow obscure my vision.  And then I go to work and put my energy into being as present as I can possibly be at work. I worry about the Prior Authorizations I’m not getting done in what I consider to be a timely fashion because there is just too much to do.  I feel guilty because the papers keep piling up and my desk is never clear.  The thought that becoming overwhelmed as I have previously defined it may not be the best definition by which to live my life is now in the forefront. 

  LW agreed that while my definition of overwhelmed was pretty good, he proposed a modification: If I’m having symptoms that feel as if they are too much to manage, then I can skip a dose.  He would prefer that I take it more slowly. The Lyme bugs are not going to become resistant to the antibiotic . My bodymindspirit is not going to become overwrought by “gutting it out.” My parent’s imparted a very strong work ethic into me, to the point where the lack of self-care has often taken the backseat to the needs of others. Nursing school further re-inforced that one do the job no matter what, that sick people are depending on the nurse and she is the double-check that keeps very human doctors from (hopefully) not making very human errors themselves. I,wanting to be the good, helpful girl that everyone will like because I am so helpful bought it hook, line and sinker. 

   I am relieved that I can be kinder to myself. I am relieved that tonight forgetting to take my antibiotic is a sign of how very tired and foggy I am and that it is appropriate not to take a medication that will make me more foggy and achy in the morning. 

I am happy because someone in authority has given me permission to relax. That pushing harder will not get me better faster and will possibly prolong the process. I am happy that I have come along far enough in my life that I accept this permission.

Blessings abound.

   The tetracycline is working. I take five hundred milligrams, for the most part daily. I say for the most part because as the herxe symptoms increase,i.e., more brain fog, all over aches and pains and stifling fatigue, I start to become overwhelmed. My doc has told me that it’s ok to hold the tetracycline at those times. Friday I decided that overwhelmed was a state that didn’t necessarily mean crying and totally exhausted. This was after talking with my doc. My practice leader let me leave work an hour early as it was quiet in the office.  I was achy and tired and a little teary, but otherwise ok. 

   Saturday I hurt too much to sit up. Reading was difficult, the sound of music irritating and the only places comfortable were the couch and our bed. I briefly went outside with Lora, ostensibly for play time. She frolicked in the snow with an overly large green and blue hard ball. Me? I leaned on the railing of the entryway. Then I wove my way to the large sugar maple I call Mother. She is big and round with a spreading crown of branches.  She calls me to her when I am aching or tired or , well, many states of being. I spent time leaning against her, my body relaxing into the cold support of a tree in winter. I stayed there a while.  Lora played. I listened to the wind, heard the tree tops brushing the sky.  Then I staggered into the house, more relaxed and ready to lie down.  

  Today I want my Mother. Not the tree, not the woman in the assisted living facility with dementia. Not the paranoid schizophrenic present for most of my life. I wanted “Mumma”, the woman on whose lap I could sometimes rest my head. She would stroke my brown hair and I would relax into her touch. Such sweet times. 

  And so I become my own Mumma. I dress in soft and flowing clothing, nothing binding, nothing tight, as this is a day when it hurts to wear clothing.  I surround myself in memories of her soft touch, the songs she would sing at bedtime. I sing to myself. I practice Tonglin, lying in bed, dedicating my suffering to others so that they might find comfort, healing, peace. I cuddle Lora, a living teddy bear. I eat healthy food. I ask for help from my husband so the hurt will not overwhelm me. Most of all, I remember that from this pain, a result of killing Lyme spirochetes, I will come out on the other side of this healthier, more energetic and more myself. 

Blessings abound