Under Our Skin

I have been working on this since I got back Sunday night. Hopefully it is all coherent. If not, blame the pain meds and the sprained wrist.

I am going to tell you about the whole experience for Sunday which begins on Saturday. :) I got up and tried to take a shower. I think I've mentioned before that showering with a picc line is quite the process, but we discovered on Saturday morning that the picc line cover would not go over my swollen hand (the one that I fell on the other day) so I wouldn't be able to take a shower. Because my previous picc line cover had ripped, I had not been able to wash my hair (nasty I know) so I decided to make a last minute stop at my hair salon to see if by chance they could wash it. I couldn't (after all) go to this movie showing with nasty hair, a splinted wrist, a picc line and everything else that was going on. I needed nice clean hair. :)

So I drove over there and explained my scenario. They were extremely nice and not only washed my hair (2 TIMES), they trimmed it and styled it so that it would be easy to fix on Sunday morning. This really means that they took the straight iron to it and flattened the mess out of it. :) I left there pleased as punch. Skip ahead to Sunday ... I wake up and get all my clothes ready. After all, there has to be a plan for what I will wear. I am a woman after all. I gather my favorite brown capris, a sleeveless orange shirt and a light green jacket. I pull out my light green frog necklace and find my favorite shoes. It's perfect. I go ahead and get ready way ahead of time. Then IT happens.

I realize I might have something in my eye. I go look. As if I had enough to deal with already, my left eye lid had swollen ... it was bad. I immediately go ahead and take benedryl to knock out whatever was going on. It was obvious to me that it was an allergic reaction to something because the swelling was getting bigger and bigger. It started feeling better, but then I got the overwhelming feeling of exhaustion. Great ... that's the last thing I needed because this thing wasn't going to be over until 8:30 and it was only 1. I go ahead and take a preemptive nap and wake up 5 minutes before we have to leave.

We arrive and have been told it's going to start later than planned and that I was put in the wrong theater. Instead of getting upset right away, I just asked to be switched to the correct theater. As we're waiting, I realize that everyone I know is in the other theater (my original theater). So I begin to panic that I might be in the wrong theater after all. I was concerned because my doctor was supposed to be speaking in one of them and I wanted to hear what he had to say. After all, that was one of the reasons I was there. It took forever for us to be seated because NBC 17 was in the theater interviewing the director of Under Our Skin (Andy Abrahams Wilson). Finally they let us sit.

I was frustrated at this point because I wasn't sure if I was in the right place and I wasn't going to be able to eat anything. They were serving BBQ and I do not eat BBQ. I decided to again ask about if I was in the right one and then I decided to find and ask my doctor himself. I found him and he said that he indeed would be speaking in that theater. (What drama for one little question)

The best part up until this part was that I had met an online Lyme friend of mine Melisa L. We did not get to chat long, but it was nice really talking face to face to someone I had been talking to online for a while. Shortly after my husband eats, my doctor comes in and begins his speech about the Carolinians for Health Care Access. This is a very important group that has been established for a while, but has been reactivated. We want to try to change legislation to protect Integrative Medical Doctors. He then introduced a lady that is apart of the group that was from the Lyme community and then a gentleman from the Autism community. After this, my wonderful Lyme doctor came and sat with my husband and I to watch the movie. This absolutely made my night. There were tons of Very Important People in that room (other Lyme doctors and others) and he chose to sit with us.

After this, our North Carolina Lyme Disease Foundation Founder and President spoke and the movie began. This movie was everything I hoped for and more. It was full of emotional stories of Lyme patients, full of Lyme Literate Doctors, full of symptoms of Lyme, and it was just full of information on Lyme Disease. It was nice to watch this documentary on the big screen in a room full of people who understand the journey that I have taken. Unfortunately unless you or someone you love has been through this journey, you can not even begin to understand. However, the documentary will impact those who do not understand.

At the end of the documentary, the director had a question and answer session. The question that I asked was how long until this was on television for the masses. He stated that they did not have a television deal yet, but that it was planned for release in the theaters in March. He urged everyone to come again and to spread the word that the it was going to be out. He said the more people are interested in the theaters ... the more likely they would be able to get it out on TV.