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Day 4 – With Music From Horror Film Playing In Background

by Eric Rutulante  •  March 1st, 2011  •  4 Comments »  •  Eric's Blog

This is the point in my re-entry into IV-hood (even though it’s only been 3 weeks without it), that I begin to wonder when the herx is coming, or if it will come at all.  If the past is any indication of the future, then it’s coming.  But it’s a guessing game as to when.  I had a treatment today that will make me feel sick for up to 12 hours, then Ill feel much better from it.  So I know I’m in for one of those generally feeling yucky type of nights, but nothing compared to what most of the days have been like recently.

It’s easy to live in fear of that herx.  Or the next flare up.  Or the next night you’ll go without any sleep which will then trigger all your Lyme symptoms the next day.  There are so many things each day to be afraid of.  Whether you’re “newly” sick, in beginning of treatment, midway through, at the end or all done.  Once you’ve gone through the hell of Lyme disease, there’s always the opportunity for fear to sprout into thoughts in your mind.  On your best day, you could spend the entire time wondering how long it’s going to last before you return to your normal feelings of being ill.

What’s sad is on that day when you’ve felt your best, you shouldn’t be wasting those few precious good hours worrying.  Maybe the reason you can’t sleep is because you’re up at night worrying about not being able to sleep, or if you’ll have the energy for what needs to be done the next day.

Instead you should be taking advantage of every minute you feel good.  Some days you may only have an hour that you’ll feel good, or even “better”.  Embrace every minute of that hour while you have it.  We spend so much time in bed, in pain, exhausted and in a nonstop battle for our health…and all that time in bed sick we wish for relief.  Yet when we are given relief, no matter how brief it is, too many of us get stuck in this cycle of thinking and you waste that special time given to you.

The whole of it all comes down to worrying.  Worrying causes fear, or can be caused by fear.  No matter where it comes from, it is vital to find the cause of it and stop it.  When we have those days, or hours or feeling better, it’s a blessing we need to take advantage of.  It may give us the time to spend with loved ones, to do that thing that we keep putting off, or it may be a chance to let our body rest and heal from the work it’s constantly doing.

Never underestimate the power of an hour.  Even one hour of relief from the daily torture Lyme presents can be enough to revitalize our souls, and give us strength to face the next hurdle we have to jump.

But we can’t utilize those moments of relief if we spend them in fear or worry.  What’s going to happen tomorrow is going to happen tomorrow whether we worry about it or not.  Learn to live in the now, so that when those precious moments come along where you can take a breath and have a break from any of your daily symptoms, you are prepared and able to make the most of them.

I take the first step in my own advice today, as I enjoy a couple hours of mild pain, but much less than normal for what I’ve done today.  I know I have a herx from today’s treatment to look forward to tonight, and that somewhere down the road a big herx will happen.  But until it happens, I can’t worry about it…because I’ve been given the blessing of a few hours of slight relief, and I want to take advantage of every single minute of it.