In December I was finally diagnosed with chronic Lyme Disease. The weeks leading up to the diagnosis I had many emotions flying through me, part of me wanted a positive result because then I'd finally have a name to what I've been dealing with for the past 7 years. Part of me was terrified that I'd finally get an answer but that nothing in my life would change, that after all this waiting and anxiety over this test, I'd get an answer, do the treatment and I'd still be sick. And then the other part of me just feared another negative result and being back at square one.
My doctor called me and I can remember the first thing she said to me was, "Well, I got your test results back and I can say one thing's for sure, they're really weird." She continued to tell me about the results, I can remember just sitting there trying to write down and make sense of everything she was saying. She talked about the different courses of treatment we could take and which one she felt was best. I was excited, I felt validated, I was anxious to get started, I was terrified this wasn't going to work, I almost couldn't believe we finally figured it out. I was feeling many things all at once.
My treatment plan was going to include oral antibiotics as long as my stomach could tolerate them for at least 6 months or so and then we'd go on from there. I've been dealing with a chronic infection for 7 years, it's going to take time to treat, I was warned. The morning I got my antibiotics I just about had a panic attack before swallowing the huge blue pill. I was so scared that it was going to make me incredibly sick, that my stomach wasn't going to tolerate it, that we'd have to back track and find something else to try. I sucked it up, calmed myself down and took the pill. Nothing crazy happened! For the first couple of weeks it made me rather nauseous for about an hour and I had a dull stomach ache all day. But all of this was tolerable, I could put up with this.
A month later my first set of antibiotics was complete and it was time to move onto my second set. I went from a huge blue pill to a small pink one. These pink ones don't make me as nauseous but they have some other unpleasant side effects I won’t go into. But again, nothing I can't handle.
I wish I had more to say about it. I wish I was already feeling better but in all honesty I'm only feeling worse. My body is weak, my dizziness is constant and my spirits are low. Sometimes I wonder what this life would be if someone else was living it. Could someone live my life better than I can? Sometimes I feel like this is all my fault, that my life would be better if I would just suck it up and go do stuff…whatever that means. But then I have a day like today where I try to be really productive, which to me means doing laundry or taking a shower or vacuuming my room but definitely not all three in one day. This morning I woke up and decided that today would be a laundry day. So after breakfast I pulled all the sheets off my bed, duvet cover, pillow cases and carried them to the laundry room. Just that amount of effort left me feeling miserable! I laid in bed, not sure which way was up because I was so dizzy and all I could think to do was just sleep. I can't even do laundry like a normal person. I don't know why I'm writing all of this, it makes me feel so silly haha. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that having the thought, "just get out and do stuff" isn't helpful because my body can't actually do that, I'm not physically capable of doing that yet.
I'm currently discouraged and disappointed that I'm not feeling any differently since I've started treatment. And I know it's only been two months, I know I'm being really impatient but I'm just frustrated. Thankfully though the internet makes it very easy to find people from any and every walk of life and I’ve recently come across a 21 year old girl who was diagnosed with Lyme a couple years ago. We have very different stories but our stories have at least one common theme. It’s a little scary because although she’s been diagnosed and on treatment for a couple of years, she still deals with symptoms every single day. On the other hand, it’s also encouraging because for her, she didn’t see or feel any improvement for at least 6 months into treatment. This is encouraging because it’s only been 2 months for me, I shouldn’t be so worried that I haven’t seen any improvement yet. It’s also great having some to talk to who really understands what it is I’m going through, someone who has gone through it herself, someone I can ask questions about what to expect and what helped her get through it. Someone who I don't feel like I'm disappointing because I can't go out and do stuff like I want to. Someone I don't have to prove myself to.
