Why the Government is Suppressing the Lyme Disease Epidemic

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Hello, everyone!

I know it's been a long time since I've posted, but so much has happened. First, I was able to go into a remission state...still very tired, still had aches, but there was no difference in if I was on my antibiotic pulse cycle or not -- I was stabilized no matter where I was in the cycle and was starting to feel so much better, ready to join the gym.

SCREEEECH! I got noped out of that, but for good reason. If you're going to put your life on hold, do it once if you can. Let's get as much out of me as we can. It's virtually impossible to be Lyme-free, but the fewer bacteria hiding out in your body, the better chance you have of fighting off the flu or other such things without Lyme coming BACK out of its lair and going.

So, on to the next phase. Let's get sick again by dragging out the spirochetes who had built "houses" around themselves, called biofilms. With any luck, for me this phase will last a year. I'm about a third of the way there. And then who know what will happen? Can't think that far ahead.

To do that, I'm taking things that dissolve their homes ("a plague on both your houses!" ~~ Mercutio, in the most incredibly awesome Baz Luhrman version of "Romeo and Juliet") and let the antibiotic pulse cycle start its killing again.

(It helps to keep your humor up, and books and movies handy when you're actually capable of comprehending what you're reading or seeing, let alone keep your eyes open!)


The result...you feel like holy hell. But even in this, I can see improvements, small, but there, as I track my symptoms daily, as should you). I've discovered that something is giving me hives for a few days. Tracking that. I discovered that weather has a HUGE impact on me. Yesterday my elbows hurt. Whoever heard of that? But tonight, I'm up, writing, and hoping to take the family to the movies tomorrow. That is the ONLY thing I have planned, by the way. I've learned the hard way not to push too hard when I feel more normal. You pay for it dearly the next few days.


And of course, any spare time I spend with my family, because I never know -- none of us know -- how much time we have, and I'll be honest. I'm fighting a hinky gallbladder (surgery September 8th...more on how that relates to Lyme later) AND lyme, and I've told my husband numerous times, "this must be what dying feels like". Then I try to close my mind off from that and imagine living a long, fulfilling, healthy life.

That being said -- it is more often than not that it's VERY difficult for people to even begin proper treatment. It shouldn't be that way.


I found this short clip, and I hope you take five minutes to watch this. It explains why the government is suppressing Lyme disease. There are far more reasons, and they get more and more complicated, but this is a quick, simple explanation.


Apparently there's no money in making people well.

Wheelchair

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Sunday was mostly normal.

I dyed my friend's hair pink and purple.

We all had dinner, laughed until six.

Rick and I went to bed at 8pm.

I woke up soon thereafter coughing so hard I couldn't breathe. Over and over and over. I felt like I needed oxygen and I was starting to have a panic attack.

Rick ran out that Sunday night to a 24-hour drug store to find anything to help. He came home to my crying incoherent gibberish.


Every joint and muscle hurt, undoubtedly from doing what to others would be normal...standing, bending, moving all day. But spend the majority of three years lying in bed, taking this medication and that medication and you lose muscle tone and strength. Some people, like me, lose their appetite. Some people, not like me, lose a ton of weight. I've lost. Gained. Lost. Gained more.


Humiliation is a side effect of long-term illness no one talks about much. Being fine one hour and wanting to die the next -- no one has time for that. I know. I've lost friends who just "couldn't deal" with the crazy fun house of mirrors and yo-yos that is Lyme Disease.


The disease so many doctors and nearly ALL insurance companies says does not exist, even when given concrete medical proof from advanced medical tests. Yeah, that one. The disease that turns a common cold into "do we need to go to the hospital or not."


Things were worse throughout the night and Rick stayed home late enough to get Zack to school. That alone told me he was scared, because he gets up at 3am. At 3am I was screaming in pain. I'm pretty sure that freaked my stoic husband out.


When he came home, he said my two-doctor GP office couldn't see me for at least two days. Rick decided to take me to an Urgent Care facility instead of the ER. The ER would have cost a cheap copay. It's also a lousy hospital, with one doctor on call in the ER. Rick called our insurance about Urgent Care. I needed a referral, which would take a few days. Unless I wanted to drive 45 minutes to the first "approved" one.


You see a pattern here? My insurance company does not believe I am sick with Lyme, regardless of proof by top doctors in the country, if not the world, yet can't say what I have. My insurance company prefers I sit seven hours in the ER (the last amount of time I spent waiting when I went) when I waited only ten minutes at Urgent Care three miles away and chose to pay out of pocket rather than wait days for a referral.


I barely remember the visit. I was weak, half asleep yet in deep pain, but I do
remember a nurse asking kindly,


"Does she need a wheelchair?"


In my mind, I rebelled. I've had to use a wheelchair once, but I didn't want to do it again. I don't like staggering, being unable to drive at times, but I'm afraid if I got in a wheelchair...


I'd never get out.


Zack's 13th birthday is the 10th. I had big plans for his Friday school snack and his Saturday party. Zack has no idea the extra things I wanted to surprise his party with. But I do.  I have one child, one 13th birthday.


I am absolutely going to do this. A friend has picked up Zack for school all week thus far. I get about an hour or two after sleeping like the dead to get things done. Maybe a wheelchair would be good, keep me from falling. I don't know. I've fought it. I was getting better. I AM getting better. But I push too hard, and maybe, just maybe, a wheelchair would keep me from hurting myself so much and setting my progress back.

Do they come in pink?