A Game Changer, perhaps?

So, I spend a lot of time with doctors. 

 

In fact, this morn­ing I direct­ed some­one to the bath­room and instruct­ed them how to label their urine sample. 

 

True sto­ry.

[Last name first, my friends, then first initial.]

 

But after my most recent trip to Mayo in May, and the “offi­cial” diag­no­sis of a nev­er-before-seen undi­ag­nosed dis­ease, I decid­ed I real­ly need­ed a break from the med­ical world…

 

…which last­ed approx­i­mate­ly 72 hours until I land­ed myself in the hos­pi­tal with pneu­mo­nia. Oops.

 

So after a few rounds of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and a most love­ly fam­i­ly vacay, my spir­it was renewed and ready to embark once again upon the Great Med­ical Leave of Absence.

 

Right, you know where this is head­ed. Did­n’t last long. 

 

My extra spe­cial mys­tery dis­ease has proven to be pro­gres­sive and one of my resume boost­ers is the abil­i­ty to break for­mer­ly func­tion­ing body parts while doing absolute­ly noth­ing. The giant pol­ka dot ele­phant in the room knew that even­tu­al­ly this would prove prob­lem­at­ic as the dis­ease con­tin­ued to move, but it has always been more tol­er­a­ble to bliss­ful­ly sip my green juice and watch Down­ton Abbey.

 

Friends, con­sid­er it problematic.

 

I won’t trau­ma­tize you with details, but sim­ply put, my inner alien has spent the last few months trav­el­ing to my lungs, my blad­der, and now my brain. Med­ical hia­tus offi­cial­ly over.

 

Fueled with renewed vig­or to con­tin­ue search­ing, in ear­ly July I saw a physi­cian about 30 min­utes from my home. The doc­tor lis­tened to my sto­ry, exam­ined me from head to toe, and tried to look through my med­ical records with­out too many “youhave­g­ot­to­bekid­dingme” looks.

 

A cou­ple “chap­ters” into my records, he looked me square in the eye and casu­al­ly told me he knew what was wrong with me.

 

Um…what? I must have heard you incorrectly?

 

“Lydia, you have Lyme Disease.”

 

Now, I’d like to tell you that this was some sort of inter­plan­e­tary cos­mic moment where the sun part­ed cloudy skies, trum­pets announced the arrival of silky white hors­es, and rain­bows spilled from the heavens.

 

Nope. Did­n’t happen.

 

My scout’s hon­or very first (thank­good­ness­in­my­head) thought?

 

CRAP.

 

Yep, crap.

 

From my research, my stud­ies, and own health inves­ti­ga­tions, I knew that Lyme Dis­ease treat­ment was SUPER con­tro­ver­sial. As in peo­ple have lost their med­ical licens­es kind of con­tro­ver­sial. As in peo­ple agree more about pol­i­tics than they do about Lyme Dis­ease kind of controversial. 

 

I am talk­ing the Sharks and the Jets, people.

 

And, as a side­note, haven’t I been test­ed for this before???

 

So I have spent the last few months tak­ing myself to the Lydia Buschen­feldt School of Tick Borne Dis­ease. I have read count­less arti­cles and spo­ken to PhD stu­dents cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing research. I snuck into a med­ical library and read case stud­ies. I spoke to phar­ma­cists and I spoke to herbal­ists. I joined online forums and asked ques­tions. I read books and inter­ro­gat­ed every doc­tor in my path.

 

Short of hold­ing a sum­mit of the Deer Ticks of Amer­i­ca, I’ve cov­ered just about everything.

 

See the thing is, if this real­ly and tru­ly was the path for me, then I want­ed to know that the deci­sion I made about treat­ment was one that was backed by my own per­son­al exten­sive research and understanding. 

 

I note the con­tro­ver­sy, I under­stand the options, and I have to be able to make the best treat­ment choice for ME.

 

So I hand­ed over 15 vials of blood, I researched, and I waited. 

Then I got called back for more blood, I researched, and I waited. 

And then I wait­ed some more.

 

It goes with­out say­ing that “wait­ing” is real­ly a code word for “los­ing my mind.”

 

Turned out my wait­ing/stress­ing/what-if-ing was one heck of a waste of energy. 

I do have a tick borne dis­ease. In fact, I have three.

 

Yep, three.

 

But Lyme? Yea, that was negative.

 

Yes, friends, I am in pos­ses­sion of two fan­cy-schman­cy tick-borne infec­tious dis­eases, Bar­tonel­la and Babesia, and an extreme­ly rare (duh) pro­to­zoan par­a­sitic tick-borne disease.

 

I start treat­ment on Mon­day, and while I am “excit­ed” to be get­ting rid of these things, I’m still pro­gress­ing with much trep­i­da­tion. I will be tak­ing HEAVY loads of antibi­otics that will erad­i­cate every­thing in sight — good, bad, and in between. While I don’t have the best track record with drug side effects, it will like­ly be the die-off symp­toms of the infec­tions that prove to be the most challenging.

 

Yes, die-off. As in a body of dead bugs.

 

Feel free to start rent­ing me as par­ty entertainment.

 

It’s a puls­ing sched­ule, so I won’t take the drugs every day and I will like­ly begin to learn the sched­ule of what days I will be a func­tion­ing human being, and what days I’m bet­ter off plan­ning to be home. This treat­ment will like­ly go on for at least a year, but will be aug­ment­ed along the way to address all of the dif­fer­ent diseases.

 

It goes with­out say­ing that it is next to impos­si­ble not to won­der if this is “it.” Has this been the prob­lem all along? Have I lit­er­al­ly tak­en up res­i­den­cy in freez­ing cold Min­neso­ta when I had dis­eases from a bug the size of a pop­py seed?

 

Yes, of course I won­der. Despite a body full of bugs, I am human.

 

But won­der­ing is real­ly and tru­ly, an ener­gy vam­pire. It will suck the life out of me if I let it. I may nev­er know the cause of my hard dri­ve crash. I may nev­er com­plete­ly reverse my symp­toms. That’s ok.

 

The way I fig­ure, I have a lot of diseases. 

In fact, I have more dis­eases than I do fin­gers and toes.

So, in my book, it can’t hurt to start scratch­ing three off the list, right?