Taking Back My Life
by Jennifer Allton
I could feel it on the inside. Every muscle and every bone in my body ached. I couldn't see straight and was dizzy. It was at the moment of diagnosis that I stopped living a normal life and began living my Lyme life. It was as if I had cloned one day and was reliving that day repeatedly. I took my medications and ate a little before heading to work. My drive often had me by the edge of the road vomiting violently. I continued the drive to work and took more medications despite feeling miserable. Refusing to quit my job though I felt overwhelmed, I came home collapsing every afternoon. After taking medications and eating, I would plummet into bed. My slumber would often be disrupted by a night of vomiting and diarrhea. It wasn't pretty, but it was my life.
Every moment of every day was filled with antibiotics and vitamins. I had to take precautions if I did go out for dinner and one friend said I took more supplements than her 90- year-old grandmother. So I essentially stopped eating out with my friends due to embarrassment and illness. Exercising caused me extreme pain physically and emotionally. I discovered that my brain wasn't cooperating with my legs. My brain and body were failing me and I would have to stop ten minutes into the step aerobics routine.
My body fell right into the Lyme rabbit hole. Since every case of Lyme is different, it is hard to understand the Lyme jail cell. Most people couldn't even begin to understand my body's own personal imprisonment and my Lyme buddies’ experiences were different than my own. After one year of treatment, my life was becoming more restrictive. The limits of antibiotics were suffocating. Take these pills two hours away from this one. You have to eat with this one, but you cannot eat with that one. You can take these two pills together, but you can only have dairy two hours away from them. Make sure you don't lie down at least 2 hours after this one and no matter what, do not go out in the sun or you'll get burned. This one will make you vomit and this one will give you diarrhea. Oh and be careful with this one because it can cause severe dizziness, tendon ruptures and embarrassing flatulence! The treatment was almost worse than the disease.
I spent 12 years in a different kind of prison prior to my Lyme diagnosis. I didn't know what was wrong with me. Thinking that knowing the disease would be better than not knowing, I sought the help of many health professionals. I was beginning to think differently after over one year of Lyme treatment. I often thought that death would be a better alternative than living the Lyme life. I began hallucinating streaks of pastel colors. This was frightening. My Integrative Lyme Doctor offered a unique key that pardoned me from my antibiotic penitentiary in May 2008 in the form of an antimicrobial treatment. This would allow me to eat dairy whenever I pleased, to take naps without acid reflux and even go outside. Spending time outside with the ticks wasn't in my plans.
These antimicrobial treatments were infused via IV. Spending three months in my own personal IV prison, it would take at least three or four jabs to get an IV started. Slowly, my new routine became regimented. It required me to drink a ton of water prior to arriving at the medical center. We placed a heating pad on my arm while waiting for the nurses to start my IV upon arrival. Instead of a regular tourniquet, we used a blood pressure cuff to get my veins to pop.
Then, it happened. My nurse couldn't get an IV started. She tried each arm in many different places and even got my doctor to try. Finally, I was given a reprieve of needle sticks when my doctor ordered a PICC line to be inserted. Though it gave me a new set of problems, it was much better than the alternative. Most of the time, I forgot I even had it in my arm. It was finally pulled in February and since then I have been only on a limited treatment plan. None of those plans have included alternative IV's.
It was in January when I took my life back. I began working on living the life instead of living the Lyme life. I started exercising again and working full days without exhaustion. There is hope for all of you living the Lyme life. Yes, I still am in treatment and I am not at 100 percent, but my days are so much better than they were a year ago and even six months ago. One of these days, I hope I won't consider myself a Lyme patient, but a Lyme Conqueror. I hope the same for all of you.
This is why I began two blogs. One blog is my own personal experience with Lyme disease. Some of my posts are filled to the brim with "adventures," some are upbeat and happy while others show my vulnerability. My second blog has been set up strictly for praying for others with Lyme disease. This blog features different Lyme disease patients and there have been 29 that I have written biographies about since the blog's inception in March. I hope you will visit both.
If you desire to find out about my Lyme Life visit: http://jmgarnet76.blogspot.com.
If you desire to find out about Praying for Lymies, visit: http://prayingforlymies.blogspot.com.
