Chutes and Ladders: The Game With Our Health.

I remember playing these types of games when I was in elementary school.  I loved climbing the ladders and for some strange reason even loved sliding down the slides.  I think I even added a little "wheeeeeeeeee" when I'd land on the number that forced me to slide down.

If you're not familiar with this game, each player starts just left of the number 1.  You spin the spinner.  Some people were really great with the spinner while others spun duds.  The dud spinners always cracked me up.  I was a champion spinner.  Whatever number the spinner landed on is how many spaces you would move your piece forward. If you landed on a ladder, you got to climb up.  The best most wonderful spot to land on was number 28 because it would let  you go all the way to the number 84! Amazing game - Of course the goal was to get to the number 100 before your cohorts, ahem enemies, ahem friends.

Today I went to meet up with a friend and she made the comment about how she would take a few steps forward with her health and then slide backwards.  For some reason I immediately connected that with the game Chutes and Ladders.  Of course, I wrote it down on the back of a business card to jog my memory later.  It was a bloggable moment. 

I'm sure you know where I'm going with this, but let me run with it.  :)  So when you begin your Lyme journey, you start off left of number one.  With each new medicine, you spin the spinner.  Sometimes the medicine makes you feel better and you land on a number that allows you to go up the ladder.  However sometimes you take a medicine that makes you feel worse so you land on a number that makes you go down the slide.  And just when you think you have the light at the end of the tunnel, you land on number 87 and you slide all the way back down to number 24. That's what happened to me when I began Rifampin. Well I hadn't exactly reached that close to the end of the tunnel, but saying I was on number 16 and slid down to 6 doesn't make the visual impact as 87 to 24.

Yep - Treating Lyme is like a game of Chutes and Ladders.