The Week That Passed in a Minute

Hello world. 

It's 1:20am on a Friday and I am finally sitting down to blog. 

Where do the days go? 

Since I last blogged on Sunday, I've been struggling a little bit. Between the everyday symptoms of my Lyme combined with this round of treatment, I have been getting my ass handed to me. 

I have been dealing with constant nausea, headaches that leave me really just useless, pretty bad brain fog and chronic fatigue. I have been able to make it around max 6 hours awake before I crash and need to sleep. And this is after having slept 12 hours the night before. I even ended up having to sleep between my classes at school yesterday just to make it through the day. 

Needless to say it has been very, very frustrating. Some tears may have been shed this week but luckily I have an amazing support team backing me up. 

But I happily informed my supervisor I would be taking time off and started that new marketing position and it's super interesting and I am already learning a lot. I'm delving into SEO strategies and graphic design and I get to do it all at home so I am in heaven.

Plus I can manage my fatigue so much more easily by throwing in a nap here and there and I can manage all my meds and schedule my day around them which makes it easier to control for some of the symptoms. Win win. 

Now I am off to Bloglovin land to catch up and to send my Cara Box partner an email to introduce myself! Not sure what I will be doing with this theme... It's definitely a challenging one!

Some Welcome/Unwelcome News

So yesterday morning I received some news from my doctor. 

I have alluded to it in the past, but for the past year I have been having some neurological issues combined with some severe lethargy and fatigue and some joint pain and have been dealing with some sort of sickness pretty much every month. Basically I felt exhausted all the time and in turn, very frustrated at my exhaustion. 

I have been to several doctors and specialists and no one could figure out what was wrong. They suspected I was stressed from my school and work, which I technically was. They assumed I was depressed, which I was because I was stressed and tired all the time. They assumed I had Vitamin D deficiency, which maybe I did. 

But I still wasn't getting better. 

Last week I went into urgent care because I had an awful cough and had been sick for a solid month. I told them my symptoms and I ended up getting a full work-up of blood work and an x-ray. 

So the doctor called yesterday morning and left me a voicemail asking to call back as soon as I received the message.

So I called back and spoke with a nurse who told me that I had Lyme Disease. 

And I was ecstatic. For the past year I have been researching my symptoms and suspected I had Lyme. My neurological symptoms threw me off a bit (I was tested for MS) but I had a feeling. 

I had a very good friend who had late stage/chronic Lyme and she almost died. It was awful to see. But as a result, I was familiar with the symptoms. 

My brother also has a friend who is currently undergoing treatment for Lyme right now and when I told my brother my diagnosis, his verbose and eloquent response was "Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh shiiiiiiiiit. That sucks dude." He has such a way with words. 

I also had an incredibly odd encounter several years ago at a Barnes and Noble. An older woman started a conversation with me (I am one of those people who strangers always approach) and spoke to me about how there is a pharmaceutical 'conspiracy' to cover-up the epidemic of Lyme Disease because some people believe that Lyme is a cause for many neurological diseases later on in life and most prominently, Alzheimer's Disease. Her husband was currently suffering from Alzheimer's and at the time I honestly thought this woman was crazy. But she told me to go home and research and watch a movie called "Under our Skin" (the link takes you to the movie on Hulu- it's free and fascinating!) I went home and watched it and my mind was blown. 

I know my body. I knew something was wrong and it was so incredibly frustrating to constantly be told  "There's nothing wrong with you". I knew something was wrong and I finally got someone to find it for me. 

I felt so relieved. 

I am now on antibiotics and am really excited to begin treatment. I am a little nervous as well because about 1/3 of those with Lyme continue to experience symptoms after the antibiotics are through and some do get worse. I am cautiously optimistic but feel vindicated that I have "proof" there is something wrong. 

I am excited to begin my healing journey. I hope to regain some energy and feel like I am living life again because honestly, I feel like I have been sitting on the sidelines a lot. 

So while I am sad I have to go through this all, especially seeing how my friend struggled so much, I am relieved to have an answer and begin getting back on with my life again. 

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