LymeBites.com

Just Another Week With Lyme – With Lyme Weeks Feel Like Years

by Eric Rutulante  •  March 7th, 2011  •  5 Comments »  •  Eric's Blog

I’m now in my second week of Treatment – The Sequel.

It’s pretty much what I remember the beginning being like, only without the total shock at how tired I am all the time.  The good thing is this will only last a while before my body is back at it again.

I have to say the hardest part about accepting having to start everything up again, and in many ways I feel like I’m starting “over”, although I know I’m not, is that it feels like the last year brought me full circle to where I started from.  I have to remember all the work that went into the last year.  The fight against the co-infections, getting my immune system back in order, getting out of a no sleep pattern into one where I slept perfectly almost every night.  All of that was progress, and things that will help this round of treatment to work better because of the issue that were addressed and corrected.

Part of the reaction my body is having to the IV meds again is a constant state of brain fog.  At times it’s more like brain fatigue…my brain is just tired.  I had an Ondamed treatment today, one of the programs was to help with the brain fog.  Here’s hoping it helps!  This is my 2nd week back on Ondamed, and that always brought relief, so hoping for a little boost the next couple of days to help me with so much going on.

Each day seems busier than the last.  That’s half the problem of those with Lyme and other chronic illness. In order to “prove” we’re sick, receive the benefits our employment provides, get the public assistance needed to help during your illness etc., we sometimes spend hours on one little thing.  Chasing down a report nobody can find, having to prepare yourself for the next call to someone who holds your future in their hands.  It’s all very daunting when you’re so sick you can only keep one eye open at times, and that’s just to be able to focus on what you’re doing.

That’s kind of how this week is.  Every day is an administrative nightmare.  My Task lists are long each and every day, and full of phone calls.  (I hate talking on the phone.)  Each phone call is one that makes me nervous to make, and with the neurological symptoms I could easily end up sounding like a babbling idiot in any phone call I might make.  It takes a lot of prep time to be able to actually make yourself ready to deal with each of these responsibilities.

It’s a week my body is telling me to REST.  It’s starting up a war again against the disease in my body.  It needs all the help it can get.  But in order to be able to be “sick”, it requires a lot of work.  I have Dr or labwork appointments every day this week.  That alone wipes me out, but then to add to the list all the details that have to be maintained on a daily basis, it gets overwhelming.

So as week two gets underway back in treatment after a short reprieve, I’m more organized then when I first got sick, and have a better idea of what I need to do for my own health.  But to do that requires more work, but that work pays off in the end allowing you to just be sick.  So I’m spending a lot of time this week just trying to find a happy medium for the rest my body needs, and to get the most “work” done in the meantime to keep up with everything.

Not an easy task, but nothing with this disease is.  Our healing depends on what we put into it, so I have to learn to work with that and then make it work.  Just another day in learning to live with, and accept Lyme.