Illumination

Today is a new day, a better day and I am grateful. Today I am finishing off Chris' fabulous painting job in the living room... turning our space a lovely shade of new growth pale green. Today my head is clear enough to finally...finally begin this blog.

Yesterday. I woke from strange and disturbing dreams, a common thing, but something I'm used to shakin off. Yesterday was different. When I walked downstairs...my sense of the day was that SOMETHING was wrong. Not that occasional wake up-dread that we all have, but off, askew, twisted somehow. I only had to look in the mirror to confirm this. The lines in my face looked deeper than I've ever seen, my skin pale, my eyes dull and way too old. I drug myself through the morning...feeling just plain wrong.

I knew I only had to make it through the afternoon...it was a BIG day. The day I've been heading towards for the last 2 months since my whole life has changed; the day perhaps I've been heading towards my entire life. I was finally going in to give blood for to be tested for Lyme Disease and it's co-infections.

When I first got to New Jersey in late May; beginning yet again, a whole new life, I was feeling pretty good. New love...new beginnings. Pushing my body hard and enjoying every second of setting up the first house I've been able to call my own in 6 years. Over the next month I began to have problems and was feeling worse and worse.

For the last 5 years (after a lifetime of Dr after Dr after Dr and getting nowhere) I've been being treated for very severe allergies. It seemed to be helping a bit but too many things didn't seem right and I was experiencing things I did not know how to name or put into words. I mean seriously, there is no handbook that says "If you are having weird shooting nervy pains that come and go and move around all over: do THIS". I had been having intense pain in my joints...but randomly and honestly, I just sucked it up. Everyone has aches and pains yeah? My allergist told me nerve pain was common with mold allergies....'Here have some more steroids". Lol. I had been doing research on my own, when the brain fog lifted enough to think at all. Nerve pain, nerve disorders, ALS, MS, Parkinson's, muscle pain, joint pain....and what my sister Kendra had suggested, Lyme. No matter how hard I looked, I kept striking out. Nothing matched up. All of these things had specific criteria that just didn't fit. It was so confusing my head ached with it.

After a month or so of getting worse, Karlee asked me about Lyme again. This time I hit it! What I'd been seeing is the info most of us are familiar with: You get Lyme from a tick bite, you get a rash, you get treated with antibiotics, end of story. What I discovered, that an amazing amount of people already know, is that there is a HUGE side to Lyme that we never hear about. People who have it, don't know and then the disease progresses into something altogether different and insidious. Lyme in it's late stages is called 'the great imitator'... it looks and acts like a huge variety of diseases and symptoms. And get this: no two people that have it are the same. There are something like 500 documented symptoms and more showing up all the time.

to be continued....