My past week

My week was *curayzee* (crazy). Saturday evening I took my first dose of the detox supplement. I'm supposed to be on this detox supplement for a week before starting the bottle that targets Borrelia. So I opened up the bottle, pulled out the capsule and thought ... there is no way this is doable, but I'll try it. So I pulled out a small container of applesauce and began to pry open the capsule.

Now LDN capsules are hard to open, but this one ... I almost pulled out my husband's pocket knife to cut the sucker in 1/2. So I sprinkle that bad boy (well probably 1/4 of it because that sucker was huge!) in the applesauce and attempt to swallow. Let the gag reflex begin. Ugh. It was terrible. It took 20 minutes to take this ONE capsule. Twenty minutes later I was feeling really nauseated. I stayed nauseated the whole night. The next morning I got up and opened up the bottle. Just the smell knocked me over so I emailed my guru and said, "Look this ain't happening pal, give me the GL version." Okay I didn't say it that way, but bottom line was my guru ordered one in a dropper form so that I could do "one drop" at a time. I picked that up yesterday and started my first dose last night. We'll see. I did the 3 drops and wasn't gagging. WEIRD thing was that I got a rash on my back. I don't know if it's related or not. Probably not, but just a major coincidence.

So the rest of the week. I'm exhausted just thinking about it!

I had my class on Tuesday. I have no idea how I'm doing in that class because we're more than 5 weeks in and we have only received one grade. Hopefully that one grade is indicative of how I'm doing in the rest of the assignments. Turned in the assignment early since I knew I wouldn't be feeling up to it on the rest of the week.

I had my treatments on Wednesday. My LLMD wanted me to get some blood work and I was scheduled for an IV. So, they are kind of enough to always try to get the blood from the IV insertion site so it doesn't take multiple sticks. They look and finally go back to the one in my left hand. This little vein isn't going to hold up much longer. I'd say I don't' know what I'd have to do if I got the IVs more than once a month, but I do know what would happen. I would get another line.

So she inserts it and tries to get blood out. One tube came out "ok," but the second tube started hemolyzing. So they made a rash decision to use the first tube for my "fasting" blood work and go ahead and start my IV. I went back to my chair and warmed up my right arm. I was hoping they would find something and I wouldn't have to come back next week for another try. After warming up for about 20 minutes, she came over and got me. They drew no less than 12 vials. I really don't know how many were up there ... but it seemed like quite a lot. They drew "extra" just in case one vial hemolyzed and they also had to draw two tubes extra to throw away since I was getting an IV during the blood draw. I went in yesterday and they said my blood work was fine -- should get back next week one day. I finished up my IV and on a whim asked if I could get 60 minutes in the HBOT. They approved it and I enjoyed my rest in the chamber. By the time I left the chamber, I had energy. More energy than I've had in a month! Not sure if there was something regarding mixing the IV and the HBOT right after, but I'm telling you ... I felt wonderful!

On Thursday, I had planned an "easy & restful" day. I got my hair done. That was my plan, but ... we also needed to take our "puppy" (aka over 10 years old) to the vet to get rabies vaccination. I asked for Saturday, but they were booked the next two. This was kind of urgent so they squeezed us in on Thursday afternoon so we could just get the one shot. And by us, I mean Dexter & me. Husband was dutifully working. :) We'll take him back in a few weeks to get the rest of the stuff he needs. Then after bringing back the dog, I went to eat dinner with my best friend. Now I'm telling you --- I do not know where I would be if it weren't for this person. I remember a time before he was in my life, but life became significantly better once we were friends.

Friendship is like wine (or so I've been told ... never drank the stuff personally -- tried to once .. spat it out ... yuck) -- it only gets better with age. The best friend isn't the one you go out and do things with all the time. A best friend isn't the one you have the most in common with ... A best friend is the person that you can sit in the car and talk for hours without realizing hours have passed. *oops* I have always said that you should never take your best friend for granted. You just never know what could happen. My Mom recently lost hers. I know it's tough. I thank God every day for sending me mine.

That brings us to yesterday. Yesterday was the day the assignment was due. Can you see how I never would have finished it if I had waited? Don't wait for tomorrow when you can do it today --- Oh don't get me wrong, I'm the queen of procrastination (ask that of the laundry that has been sitting waiting for me for weeks), but that's not the important stuff. Yesterday I called up to the LLMD to find out of my new formula for the supplement had arrived. It had. So I went and picked it up. None of the blood work was back, but I hadn't expected it to be. Our lab called the big lab to make sure my blood was good for testing. It was.

Does anyone remember the day the lightning struck our house? Anyone that knows me knows that I don't spend a whole lot of time in the kitchen, but one day this week I got a hankering for a "shake." So I decided to throw a whole bunch of ingredients together into the blender and blend. I pre-froze yogurt into cubes so I wouldn't have to "just use ice." This took 3 or 4 hours you see. SO by the time I got to the blender part, I was really kind of excited to taste this concoction. I threw in blueberries, a little bit of water, a little bit of vanilla flavored powder and the frozen cubes into the blender. Can you see where this is going? I pressed power. *nothing* The blender stared at me in stunned silence. I thought maybe it wasn't plugged in. So I unplug everything and find the blender cord and plug it in. I press power. *nothing* The blender just stared at me taunting me with my ingredients sitting in it. So, I look at the switch and wonder if something is wrong with it. I reset the switch and try again. *nothing* I move the blender to another switch. Can you say desperate? The blender looks at me and laughs. I scratch my head and say bump it. I pull out a hand mixer ... AN ELECTRICAL HAND MIXER YA'LL and I blend ... and I blend and I blend ... I was desperate for this shake and I wasn't about to go to Wendy's!

So last night, my husband and I go to get a new one, a new blender. Why get a 30 dollar blender when you can get a 130 dollar one?



I'll be blending like a Ninja baby! Okay maybe not, but it works .. and is very sharp. Don't touch it. I won't tell you how I know (ok if you insist ... amazon reviewers). *no injuries of the wife or the husband occurred while making a smoothie, but that smoothie did not taste good .. didn't have any bananas and bananas make a smoothie.

Overachiever does it again

... and again. I now have 6 perfect scores out of 6. Way to go me!

My other professor called me an overachiever yesterday. I turned in an assignment that wasn't due until Friday on Tuesday. I had to because I wasn't sure after my treatments today if I would be in the right mind to be able to complete the assignment. So I finished it early and took it to her early. I told her I had a lot of stuff going on this week and wasn't sure if I'd complete it and get it to her on time if I didn't get it in early.

Carolina Duke game is on. If you live in North Carolina, you know what kind of game that is! BIG ONE! Back to the game!

Score 2 for the Overachiever

My second perfect score came in from the well known difficult grader. All these students in my Admin class were telling me that this professor was tough. That this professor didn't give good grades. I just sat there knowing that I've turned in two assignments and both of them scored perfectly. I do know she's tough though. She put an announcement in our group that more than 1/2 of the class scored a ZERO! Eeks.

I'm sure that I won't keep up with these perfect scores, but what a relief it is to know that so far I'm batting 100.

*ahhh* a blessing

So I reread my homework assignment. Get this: God IS good.

I have to read the same thing in both classes. Just one is on a website and one is located in my other class book. Ahhhh what a blessing.

Because I'm having a Hyperbaric treatment today, I decided to print off the PDF and put in a notebook. I'll be able to read it out loud with little disturbances (except for the loud noise in the machine, but I think I'll be able to zone out past that) and highlight the parts that I want to write about.

I *want* to try to get all my homework done by tomorrow even though some of them aren't due by Sunday. I *am* an overachiever after all. I've been called this in the last week by not one, not two, not even three, but seven people. I probably won't get them all done, but I can try. Last week I got most of the assignments finished well before they were due. It meant I wasn't stressing all weekend regarding my stuff and if I wanted to go somewhere instead of staying home working on assignments I could without feeling a dilemma.

My 2nd class & some

I had a great second class and when I got home I got online to find my first grade for the other class. I got 10 points out of 10 points! This Lymie got a perfect score on her first college assignment! Yeah! Go me!

Now I have a huge undertaking. I have to read a bunch and then write a paper based on what I've read. Now normally this isn't a problem, but since Lyme I've had trouble processing what I've read so it takes multiple reads. Reading 80 plus pages multiple times for a paper that's due less than 5 days later is not going to happen. I'm sure I'll do fine since I essentially know the content (since it's Education), but it's still a little frustrating.

I have to turn in the one paper on Sunday and this one involves reading a bunch of websites. That's even more frustrating because I can't go between 20 different links to formulate my thoughts.

So just prayers please that I can figure out what I need to do for this lady that apparently is a tough grader. I apparently was fortunate to get the 10 out of 10 on my first assignment. Most people were saying that I'd be lucky to get 8 out of 10.

My First Class

When I took Credentials many moons ago to work in the Early Childhood Education field, I had no idea that it would lead me to a career that I've been doing for the last 10 years. At the time, I had been out of college for only a few years. I was still in the "groove" so to speak. I knew the lingo. Computers weren't *real* big yet. I mean they were, but not really.

Fast Forward to November when I decided I wanted to take some Administrative courses in Education. These two classes are commonly called Admin 1 & 2. First thing I thought was that they would be in two different semesters. I really didn't want to spend more than one semester in school, but it was the way it was. Well imagine my surprise (delightful yet terrifying) when I discovered that this semester they've decided to fast track the program. So now instead of having it in two different semesters, they are in one semester. So what would normally take 16 weeks to learn, will be fast tracked into 8 weeks. What a scary thought for a normal student, much less for me. Who let's face it: I graduated with my bachelors degree in 1999. That's a long time ago folks.

I had a little bit of trouble getting the class scheduled, but things were going smoothly. Fastforward to 3:30 today. 2 and 1/2 hours before my class. The phone rings. It's a lady with the department saying that I can't take tonight's class because I haven't had this other class. So I'm fairly calm and ask what can I do in order to be able to take tonight's class. She tells me and within 20 minutes I'm in her office with an add form in hand and hoofing it over to the registrar's office.

Now this part truly terrifies me because at Western, I once waited at the add/drop line for a whopping 7 hours. Well the luck was with me my friends because there was not a single person in line! The man added my class and I headed off to pay for it. Can you believe it? There wasn't a single person in that line either! I was beginning to feel a little lucky. Then I turned the corner and saw the line to the bookstore.

I decided to be positive and get in line and not complain. Wouldn't you believe it I got between two negative nelly's and I thought, "I'm so glad that's not me anymore." I tried to uplift them and remind them that there were worse things than waiting in line and at least we had a wall to lean on. I bet I annoyed the mess out of them. We finally made it in the store and got our books and left. I had about 40 minutes to spare for my class so I sat down and started chatting it up with a couple of people sitting in the lobby.

Cause apparently that's what Lyme has done for me - given me a confidence just to talk to strangers and be myself no matter what.

Class went well. However, all this technology has me screaming. Hopefully, I'll do just fine.

Let's just hope the Lyme brain can stay away during this crazy time of my life.

Also say a little prayer for a college student I saw today. She must have been 18 years old and taking her very first college class because she walked into the building I was in (this was the very first time I had even walked in there). She was shaking like a leaf and asked very timidly if we knew where a class was. We directed her to where we thought it might be and as soon as she left, we all three said --- that poor thing looked nervous. So either it was her first class or ... she was overwhelmed by all of her other classes. So lift up this unknown college student.

Lyme kills ...

So I rarely put pencil to paper anymore. Well yesterday while I was in the Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber, I took my notebook and pencil in with me. It's loud in there, but I took it in there to make a phone call. Silly I know, but I knew that I needed to make this phone call. I am taking the brave step in the Lyme world to take a couple of classes at our local community college. I applied in October and on Friday I got my acceptance letter (as I spoke of in my last post about Acceptance). Well, I decided since this week was going to be insanely busy that I would go to the college on Monday to find out what I could do about registration and paying.

Well, I went to Admissions to clarify that my name was in the system correctly as the name on my letter was spelled incorrectly. So the lady at the front office clarified that not only was I in the system, but it was spelled correctly. She told me I needed to go to the CAP (don't' ask what it stands for, I can't remember) office and explained where it was. So I huff it down the hall and am exhausted by the time I get there (and it's really not that far away). She says, "Name? Appointment time?" uh HUH? I need an appointment? Seriously should have known that, but I didn't. Stupid me. Stupid LYME.

She tells me to go over to the computer and log in to see when my classes are offered. Me being a stupid Lyme, I got as far as to the "Web Advisor" screen before my dumb brain locked up on me. She came over and began to multitask beautifully. I even commented on it. She helped the guy next to me, the girl on the phone and me all at the same time! So she tells me exactly what to do and we get the, "NOT IN SYSTEM, SEE SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR." She says, "Go back to the admission office and have them straighten this out. we can't do anything until that's fixed." So I huff it back down and explain the problem. The nice CAP lady even printed off the error so they could see it.

So, I get down there and they say that I'd have to come back later because the lady that would be able to help me wouldn't be there until the next day. I almost broke down at this point because I was exhausted, fatigued (and yes those are two different things!) and drained. My legs felt like the flesh was being ripped right off, but I kept my cool. I explained that I was an Early Childhood Educator and that I worked in another county and my hours were insane this week. Coming to campus on another day this week really wasn't an option and because I'm a special student only taking two classes for work that I really needed it figured out asap.

She disappeared into the back and came back about 10 minutes later explaining there was some kind of glitch in my file and she would try her best to figure it out. She went from office to office (taking a good 5 to 10 minutes in each one) with my file. Finally she emerged with a lady who said that it must have been user error. And although I wouldn't put it past me, I was with the CAP lady and she does this on a daily basis. So I did the exact procedure that I did with the CAP lady. Sure enough, same error.

She left again and then came back and said it was something they couldn't' figure out, but I couldn't register until the 9th anyways so as long as they had it figured out by then I would be good. So I left feeling utterly dejected. I couldn't even do something simple like that then how would I be able to take these classes next semester. What did this story have to do with the HBOT and the phone call?

Well, I needed to make the call to the office to see if they had figured it out. However the chamber seemed louder than normal so I decided to wait. After I was in there about 30 minutes, the phone rang. It was a lady named Christy. Now I don't know if this was any of the ladies I worked with on Monday, but she was very kind. Explaining that my student ID should now work and if I could just try with her on the phone. As I'm talking to her explaining that I'm in an Oxygen Chamber and couldn't just get online at that very moment, I realized how odd my life sounded to those not in the know. Who else would she call that in that very moment would be in an Oxygen Chamber? Seriously.

She wasn't even sure how to respond. I told her that I had tried before getting into the chamber to log in and was able to see my "user name," but that when I tried to set my password it said that "No person ID was found in directory." She said she would continue to work on it. I continued to pray about it. Then, I put pen to paper. I wrote and I wrote.

I'll share what I wrote with you tomorrow, but for now let me tell you that Christy worked and worked on my case and by the time I got out of the HBOT ... I was in the system. If it works, I'll be able to register in about an hour. Honestly, it probably won't work, but I'll be pleasantly surprised if it does.

Acceptance

I have often struggled with acceptance over my 35 years of life.

How do I accept things that I do not want (or think I need) in my life? A prime example of this was between 6th and 7th grade, my family moved a couple of counties away. I struggled with acceptance. For the first three years I was there, whenever anyone asked what time I was going home that day, I would say, "I don't know. This is not home for me." I couldn't wait to go back to my old home town. I hated where I lived. It was a difficult thing to swallow that I would not be going back to live there. I struggled with acceptance. Finally, I accepted that it was my home. I began to make friends, best friends.

Then there was the acceptance of Lyme Disease. There were many doctors that just wanted me to accept the multitude of symptoms that I had. They also wanted me to accept the fact that it was all psychological and not a sign of any disease. I wouldn't accept it. I couldn't accept it. Then I sought the help of a phenomenal doctor. He gave me a diagnosis and I accepted it. Lyme Disease. I try not to make it my life, but it is. I live and breath Lyme Disease. If I could, I would open up a "business" that would teach people about Lyme Disease that would help others with Lyme Disease. Though I wouldn't make money doing that, I have to accept that too.

The other part of acceptance is having people accept me for who I am. Most people either like me or they don't. There is no in between. I have a unique personality that annoys some people. In fact, most people don't get me unless they get me. I'm kind of like Lyme Disease in that way. You don't get Lyme unless you get Lyme. And paraphrasing a friend of mine, if they would just get to know you, they'd love you like I do. My friends have accepted me. Acceptance is nice. I like the world accepting me for who I am. And for those that don't, I really shouldn't care. But I do.

December of 1994, I got a letter in the mail. I had always been told that a "huge" package would mean acceptance and a small one would mean rejection. I got the small one. I was crushed. It was the only university I wanted to attend. Then I opened the letter and saw that I was accepted. Myth debunked. Acceptance doesn't just come in big packages. Acceptance sometimes comes in small packages too. I was reminded of this just yesterday when I received another small package. You see, I applied to the local community college to take a couple of courses in the spring. I got a small letter. I was accepted. It's always nice to be accepted.