The Phenomenal Closet Part 2

In January of 2011, I realized I was living in a mess of a house.  I was frustrated so I started off in the most unlikely place:  The Closet.  I showed of photos in this post.  The Phenomenal Closet.   I have never been one to keep a tidy anything.  I am well known for being cluttered and if we're being honest, "Cluttered" is a nice word for what I am.  My closets have always been especially bad.  If it didn't have a place, I'd chunk it in the closet.  It's been that way since I was little.  In High School, my closet was a danger zone.  Open it up and something was sure to pop out.  I once told someone in high school that they could have my extra radio.  The caveat was that they had to find it --- in my closet.  She opened up the closet and stuff poured out of it.  She said forget about it. LOL.  

So when I cleaned out my closet in January of 2011, there were doubters that I would keep it clean.  If we're being honest here, I was one of those doubters. I set out to prove those doubters wrong.  It stayed clean from January 2011 until we moved in May 2012.  Now that folks is impressive, especially for a clutterer.  

When we moved to the new house, I organized it as best as I could.  However, I was exhausted and just didn't have the energy I needed to make it as neat.  Then, we added winter jackets to the mix.  Everytime I walked into the closet, I got frustrated.  This morning I was determined to rectify the situation.  I started off with the jackets. I simply wanted to move the jackets. 


This is the story knock off of "If you give a mouse a cookie."  I call it, "If Jennifer decides to move the winter jackets." 


If Jennifer decides to move the winter jackets, she'll have to move the dresses.

When Jennifer moves the dresses, she'll have to move the pants. 

When Jennifer moves the pants, she'll decide the pants aren't hanging neatly enough so she'll have to straighten them.

After Jennifer straightens the pants, she'll have to move the shirts to a new space.

After she moves the shirts to a new space, she'll have to space them evenly and hang them in color coordinated fashion.

After Jennifer finishes with the clothing, she'll decide to go ahead and move the king sized sheets and electric blanket, but first she'll have to move the shoes.

 

After Jennifer finds a place for all of the shoes, she'll have to find a new space for blankets and extra stuff.

  

After finding a space for blankets and the other stuff, she'll decide she needs to organize her shirts. 

And after she organizes her shirts, she must get a camera to take pictures of her progress.

And that's what happens if Jennifer decides to move the winter jackets. 

Assortment of Laundry

I have always had the biggest trouble keeping up with laundry.  I never seemed to have enough energy to do it.  I also have very specific ways of folding socks, shirts, hanging clothes and folding towels.  Sometimes my very sweet mother in law would see me falling behind in laundry and she would come over and put away clothes she knew had been washed.  While I appreciated her thoughtfulness, if anyone has ever seen my towel closet -- they would know, I have to have things in order.  All of my purple towels are stacked neatly together.  All of my blue towels are stacked neatly together. All of my dark beige towels are stacked neatly together.  Facing the same direction.  Socks are a completely different beast.  I have stopped "folding" my husband's socks, but I still like to put them together so that he can easily grab a pair.  Shirts have to be facing same way and they are color coordinated.  I blame my retail experience.  I could tell when I wasn't well because those things didn't bother me.  On the day I felt better, I'd open up my towel closet and have a fit. I'd pull them all out and fold them again.  It was frustrating.  Yes, I have a problem. I realize that, but it just makes me happy. 

At our old home under the bathroom sink area, we kept two laundry wicker hampers.  They were frustrating.  Little pieces would break off.  They were heavy so difficult for me to lift.  They held two or three loads in one hamper.  I also had some rolling mesh hampers (Like college students would use) that held clean clothes.  My problem was that by the time I lugged the wicker hamper to the washer, load it up and lug the wicker hamper back (still with dirty clothes in it), my energy was zapped.  I could barely switch over the clothes to the dryer.  In fact, truth be told, most of the time I'd forget and they'd have to be rewashed. 

So when we moved to the new house, I had to come up with a better system.  I had to.  I didn't want piles of clean clothes everywhere along with piles of dirty clothes.  We went shopping for the "perfect laundry basket."  It couldn't be too heavy or hold too many clothes.  We discovered a tall white plastic basket that had wheels and handles.  So if I was too tired to lift, I grab a handle and roll.  We bought five of them.  One basket holds dirty clothes that are put away in the dresser or chest of drawers.  One basket holds dirty towels or dirty clothes that are hung in the closet.  One basket holds "Special Wash" laundry.  One basket is meant for bulky or really dirty clothes.  Last, but not least is the "Clean" laundry basket. 

Three of the baskets are located in our closet (dirty clothes) and the other two are located in the laundry room.  One one of the dirty baskets gets full, I take it to the laundry and dump into the washer.  I bring the hamper back to its place in the closet (empty).  I put the newly washed clothes into the dryer on the same day (because it's not overwhelming to bring it to the washer any more).  Once dried if I have enough energy, I put the clothes into the "clean" basket and take to its destination spot (closet or dresser).  I put away on the spot.  There are no other options. By pre-sorting the laundry when removing it from my body, it makes it easier to put away.  In the old system, it was a free for all. I'd have a mix of hanging clothes and folding clothes.  I'd fold them or hang them in a central location and by the time I had them folded or hung, I was too exhausted to put them away.  This new system has helped tremendously and I haven't had to rewash a single load of laundry since we moved in.  I'm also no longer drowning in laundry. 

Thankful Post

Things I am thankful for this morning.

• God's Grace. 
• Waking up
• I loaded the dishwasher and ran the dishes through a cycle.
• My supplements are beginning to work.  
• Fewer headaches and more energy
• Case in point, in addition to the dishes, I completed one load of laundry
• Which brings me to my next point, I'm thankful that I finally figured out a laundry system that works for me.   
• Electricity
• Lyme friends that visit even when they don't feel well.  
• Which means that I'm thankful that my downstairs is visitor ready!
• We paid our last COBRA bill (read EXPENSIVE).  Starting next month, we'll have regular insurance.
• Which brings me to my next point, I am thankful that my husband's temp job will become permanent before it's time to pay our next COBRA bill.  
• What a wonderful day to be alive! :o)

Tackling The Bonus Room.

When we moved from our first home to this one, we brought with us boxes that hadn't been opened in many years.  In those boxes contained memories of times long ago. When we moved in, our strategy was - if we know which room it goes in and can be put into place (IE furniture) - put it into place.  Everything else placed into the garage.  A few weeks went by and we decided there were a few things that needed to go ahead and be put inside the house.  So we moved most all the inside boxes into the living room.  After a few weeks of tripping over everything and getting extremely irritated, we decided to bring all the boxes upstairs and into the bonus room.  This is where (theoretically) we could unpack and find a home for everything else. Also by this time, everything that was going to need to be downstairs was already downstairs.  Theoretically everything up in the bonus room or in the garage would need to find a home upstairs or garage (respectively). 

Here we are, three plus months later, and the downstairs looks awesome.  It is visitor ready at almost any time of the day.  There are a few "hidden surprises," but overall the downstairs is organized and neat. Then, we walk upstairs.  I just shake my head.  I pretty much avoid the upstairs altogether.  So yesterday, I decided it was time to move some stuff.  We walked in and if it looked like it could be Christmas Stuff it was moved it to a bedroom that was empty.  I opened every single tote or box and unwrapped every single item.  I, then, DVD racked it.  LOL.  My husband jokes with me that when I want to 'look' like I'm cleaning that I organize the DVD rack.  There was a reason for the organization though.   I wanted all my tree stuff to go into one tote so that when it's time to decorate the tree, I only have to pull out one tote to do it.  I wanted all my snowmen stuff in one tote so that I know what to expect when I open that tote.  Then everything that already had its own box was stacked in the closet neatly.  I managed to put everything from two HUGE (unmanageable) totes into two medium (manageable) totes.  There are only a handful of items left and they will go into a third tote.  I know we have some more Christmas things in the Bonus Room and hopefully those things will be combined with the handful of items will fit nicely with those items. 
 
 Then we tackled "files."  Now, it would be simple of the files were already ready just to be put into our file cabinets.  However, we had probably 6 bankers boxes worth of files/paperwork.  Two of them were filed nicely and the other four -- well not so nicely.  We went through the boxes and I put out in three piles.  One pile would need to be shredded, one pile that we needed/wanted to keep and the final pile was a pile that I wasn't sure if it needed to be shredded or kept.  We wound up with two full banker's boxes of "shred" material, one full banker's box of files in files (although this could be worked through and organized better, but we'll wait for that another time) and a full banker's box with files not filled at all - and a completely empty box. 

Why is it that men have a box of stuff and women have a box of memories?  I'd look through boxes and remember the exact moment and feeling of the things in the boxes.  I felt happy.  My husband looked through his boxes and it wasn't until he came across his old Popular Science Magazines that he even had a look of nostalgia in his eyes.  I don't want to get rid of the acorn a dear friend of mine gave me in the 5th grade (nor will I !!!) that I held every day from the point he gave it to me until I graduated high school.  It was my secret (well I guess not anymore. LOL). I'm leaving my elementary jewelry box intact as is.  I remember how I felt as I placed each treasure in there.  It includes one of my lost baby teeth.  I remember not placing too many things in that box after elementary school.  I haven't looked in that box since college and I haven't pulled anything out since high school.  It was like my own little time capsule with tiny bubblegum rings, fake jewelry, girl scout patches, a lost tooth, a marble and that precious acorn plus many other memories.  To anyone else, it would be a box of stuff.  But to me, it's happiness in a box.

Lastly while in college, I wrote down a phrase.  I found it while digging through a box.  It said, "Children will soar like Eagles if given the wings to fly."  How Profound -

headache free

Health Update:

So I've now been on the new detox supplements for over a week.  After being off the antibiotics for two full weeks and on the detox supplements for 5 days, my headache decreased significantly.  I woke up this morning headache free.  Actually, I woke up clear headed and with a little bit of energy (I think this is due to the different kind of b12 I've been taking).  It's a spray.  The energy makes me feel better over all. 

I am still having pain in different muscles and bones, but at least for today my head feels better.


Home Update:

So I decided to make use of my energy spurt  this morning and do some things around the house.  I focused on the downstairs so I'd feel accomplished when I was finished.  Plus the items I did downstairs were easy accomplished in 5 minutes or less each.  I finished one task, rested some and the moved on to my next task.  It's my goal to always keep the downstairs area looking tidy so that if I were to have guests (neighbors, family or friends) come by that I wouldn't feel the need to "have" to clean.  We need to really work on the upstairs, but I am taking it one thing at a time. 

• My Office - Straightened
• Guest Bathroom Downstairs - I cleaned the toilet and sink.
• Dining Room - Straightened
• Kitchen - Straightened (and cleaned the stove top)
• Living Room - Straightened
• Master Bedroom - Straightened.
• Master Bathroom - cleaned toilet and sinks.  

I love my new house.  It's so relaxing and comfortable.  

Fun (I left the house) Update:

• On Wednesday, I did an informal observation at friend's school.  She was appreciative of my input and has already implemented several suggestions.
• On Thursday, I had my hair trimmed and styled. 

Fun through the pain

I decided this past week that I needed to have a little fun through the pain.  I was invited to three different things this past week.  Against better judgement, I decided that I would do all three things.  So this post is to remind myself that I can have a little fun throughout the pain.

•   On this upcoming Monday, a church is opening up a child care center.  My friend, Jamie, is going to be the director of the center and this past Monday she invited me to come to her open house and to go out to eat with her.  My responses to these kinds of things are generally "Thanks, but I just can't."  So my response to her was, "I think I can make that."  I wasn't sure if i would or not, but I really wanted to go to support my friend.  So I did.  I arrived good and early so that if I had to cut out early at least I had a chance to see Jamie.  I wound up staying the entire open house and going out to eat with a few of our mutual friends afterwards  I am so glad I did because it enabled me to "meet" a new person that was from my small little town.  I spoke about this happy accident on my post on Tuesday.  

• On several occasions, I have been invited to a fellow Lymie's house.  I really am not fond of going to other people's homes.  I generally can't make myself comfortable there so I avoid it at all costs.  I hate to ask certain questions to find out if I'll be comfortable (such as, "Does anyone in your home smoke?") at their home so am typically unpleasantly surprised when I walk into their home and it reeks of cigarettes.  Well this particular Lymie lives about 10 minutes from me and has invited me over several times.  So on Thursday, I decided to go over.  I stayed about 5 hours (which is a life time for me at someone else's home).  We talked a lot of Lyme Disease.  It was fun for her as she had never met in person anyone with Lyme.  

• Then on Monday morning, I received a text from my new neighbor inviting me over to come hang with "the ladies" on Friday night.  I simply replied that I may not be feeling up to it (which was true), but that I may pop in for a few minutes to say hello.  That would give me an easy out if I wasn't feeling well and an easy pop in and pop out excuse as well.  However, when I popped in -- I began to enjoy the company so much I pretty much stayed the whole time.  There were chairs for me to sit in, we gambled a bit - hey it wasn't my money and I won the fake game twice.  But when it came to the actual game where someone got to take the pot of money -- I lost.  I was runner up to the woman that never wins anything so that was fine.  Everyone had 5 dollars.  My neighbor supplied most of the dollar bills. There were three dice.  On each dice there was either a circle, star, the word LEFT or the word RIGHT.  If you had at least 3 dollars, you rolled all 3 dice.  Each dice told you what to do.  Circle meant you put a dollar in the middle.  LEFT meant pass to the person on your left.  RIGHT meant pass to the person on your right.  STAR meant you kept everything you had.  The winner of the money in the middle was the person who had the last dollar.  It was a simple game and cognitively I was able to play.  I was so thankful that there were no actual card games being played because my brain function wasn't there enough to play something more difficult than pass to the middle, left or right.  

 I knew that I might forget this fun week so I wanted to keep a journal of it so that later when I say I never have any fun at all that I would remember these three evenings of fun. It was also so very sweet all of all three ladies to remember me when they had something fun.  Honestly, most people don't even invite me places anymore because they know most of the time I can't go.  So it's nice to be remembered.  

House Update

Things are going very slow around the house.  It's difficult for me to do much, but I try to do one thing in the house every day so that the every day life mess doesn't start to creep up in the house.  Today, I want to try to sweep off the back & front porch and side walk.  I'm not sure if I'll get it done, but it is something I'd really like to accomplish today.  I've already swept off 1/2 of the back porch so that is better than nothing. 


We had several warranty items that needed fixing and this was the week for that.  On Monday, we had a guy come look at our tub.  It was really rough feeling and apparently was supposed to be smooth.  It wasn't in our warranty, but our builder took a look and got someone to come out to smooth it out.  On Tuesday, we had a guy come look at our kitchen faucet.  The hot water was coming out at 1/2 speed the cold.  It wasn't like this in any other sink in the house. Plus the part that holds on the sprayer broken into thirds so he looked at that too.  He fixed both problems at the same time. 

Then Thursday, we had the flooring guy come.  He was to look at the vinyl in the master bathroom, the carpet nails and an area of loose carpeting we had near the fire place.  They had only told him there were a few nails sticking up and about the vinyl.  If by a few nails, they meant every single nail was popping through at every threshold and we had to be careful walking in our bare feet into every room of the house or we'd get popped with a sharp nail -- then year, there were a "few."  LOL. 


He fixed the vinyl in the bathroom and I showed him the issue with the thresholds.  He called his boss because he was told it was only a few nails here and there, not every threshold, against the walls and all the way up the stairs.  His boss is supposed to send someone else to fix the majority of it, but he was very kind and tacked down the nails in the threshold in my office and the living room and around the fire place.  He even fixed the loose carpet around the fireplace.  He said at least I wouldn't have to worry bout stepping on sharp things between those two rooms (which is where I spend most of my time), but because the builder won't pay the vinyl guy for the time he spent on the carpet - his boss was going to send a carpet specialist to take care of the rest of our carpet issues.  I think he just felt bad for us especially when he sat down on the carpet by the fireplace, put his hand down and got a sharp metal piece into his own hand. 

In addition to those things, there was a small hole in the concrete in our driveway.  The builder came by himself to fix that Thursday and said he would send someone to take care of the broken brick on the side of our house on  Friday. 

We do have a pest control company to take care of the ticks and various other pests.  We don't have a various other pest problem, but the tick issue was terrible at this house.  They come out quarterly, but if we notice anything in between visits, we can call and have them come out to retreat for no charge.  The past week or two I've noticed some ants on the back porch so I called and they will come out on Saturday to treat for them. 

Day 2 of Detoxification

Day 1 I took exactly what I was supposed to take, no more and no less.  I felt a little more clear headed by the end of the night, but my headache was still there.  I was asked how my headaches feel.  I'll do my best to describe them. 

Honestly, my headaches change through out the day.  Sometimes it feels like someone has taken a child's belt and put it around the circumference of my head and tightened it.  Then, when it can tighten no more -- they tighten it down one more notch.  Other times it feels like someone is taking a blunted object and shoving into my brain.  Most of the time the shoving pain is on the left hemisphere, but it has lately turned into a frontal lobe pain.  I can have sharp pain, dull pain, a pulsating pain, a pressure pain.  Sometimes they happen all at the same time and when this happens I start to see shapes similar to what you would see if someone had taken flash photography over and over again.  

I am not a pain medicine kind of woman. The only time I've taken true pain medication (IE narcotics) is when I had surgery and it was pretty much forced on me.  Even then, I would take it for the day of the surgery and maybe the day after and then switch to something else because I just don't like the idea of narcotics. Also, I am sensitive to over the counter pain relievers.  I used to take either Motrin or Tylenol (both children's versions too because if I take adult strength then it knocks me out), but the most recent times I've taken Motrin I've had a reaction that has gotten worse.  Therefore, I can pretty much only taken children's tylenol.  I *only* take it when I have the all over, different types of brain aches, pain and need something to try to take the edge off.  I knew I was having a problem with pain when I took it three days in a row.  That's when I stopped all my antibiotics.  I thought by going off of them for 4 days the pain would ease off.  It didn't.  That's why we started the new plan for now. 

Day 2

So anyways.  This morning I got up and started day 2.  I had originally planned to only increase the dosage of 3 of the items, but decided to go ahead and up my dosage on a few other items as well.  Things that stayed the same as yesterday I marked with "same as yesterday"  I have a long way to go before the first three items are at the dosage I'm supposed to be taking.  (depending on how I take it - under the tongue - 10 drops or in water 30 drops)

This is what my morning supplements looked like:

• Cerebromax (2 drops x twice daily)
• Spinalmax (2 drops x twice daily)
• Matrix Support (2 drops x twice daily)
• Tox Ease GL (full dropper x twice daily) - same as yesterday
• Solray D Spray (2 sprays x twice daily) 
• Methyl B12 Spray (1 spray x twice daily - same as yesterday
• Lymph 2 (full dropper x twice daily - well before other supplements)
• Hawthorn Intrinsic (full dropper x twice daily)
• Vitamin C (1 gram AM, 2 grams PM)
• Multivitamin (2 x twice daily)

Tonight I'll do the above and add the Vitamin B

Since I increased the dosage of so many items (6), I won't add anything new today. 

This morning I woke up with stabbing pain in frontal lobe and a numb sensation in my right hemisphere.  I do feel more clear headed this morning (IE, I could think of the words hemisphere and circumference without having to do a lot of googling to figure out the words I wanted to use). 

____

Avoidance

I typically avoid writing about specific supplements that I take.  I do this for one of two reasons.  I don't want anyone to think that they should self treat with the over the counter supplements that have been prescribed to me by my doctor for very specific reasons.  Also, I do this to protect myself. 

However in order to help myself heal and get through the process, I have decided to do what I never do.  I am going to share about the supplements I'll be taking.  Now one thing you must realize is that I am *VERY* sensitive to supplements and medications.  I always thought this was due to my very low weight, but now that I am in the normal weight range - the sensitivity continues.  So, I rarely start off where I need to.  Example was when I was on LDN.  The typical amount of LDN for patients was in the 4.5mg area.  I had to start off at 1/2 mg.  I finally got up to 3mg, but I was never able to stabilize there. So in the end, I stopped LDN because I never could reach the dosage that my immune system needed.

A lot of people use "pill containers" for their daily doses.  However, I use mostly homeopathics in dropper form so those pill containers don't do squat for me.  So what I do is work out an excel spreadsheet.  At the top of the sheet, I list Sunday through Saturday.  I list them twice.  One for AM and one for PM. One sheet of paper is my week's worth of supplements/medication.  Then on the left side of the paper, I list all of the supplements/medications.  I make sure that there is an outline for each little box so that when it prints off I am able to easily check off the box for that particular supplement on that particular day.  If am I dosing up --- for example:  1 drop on Monday, 2 drops on Tuesday, 3 drops on Wednesday -- then I mark how many drops for that box so that I know when I grab that bottle --- exactly what my dosage is.

Right now I have 23 items listed on the left.  However to start, I won't use all 23 items.  In fact, last night I only used 6 items.  This morning I only used 10 items. Some of the times I won't be using for another few weeks, but I wanted them on my excel spreadsheet already.  Some things on the list won't be taken on the same day.  Example is that the first 3 items on the list will be taken on day 1,2,3 of the week and the second 3 items on the list will be taken on day 4,5,6 and 7.  Some items I only take once a day (like the Vitamin B because it makes me nauseated and I can fall asleep before it makes my stomach turn).  Some items I don't even have at home yet.  Some items I know exactly what they are for and some I have no clue.

All of the items on my list:

• Cerebromax
• Spinalmax
• Matrix Support
• Detox 1
• Detox 2
• Detox 3
• Tox Ease GL
• Solray D Spray (has Vitamin D and K)
• Methyl B12 Spray 
• Lymph 2 
• Hawthorn Intrinsic
• Scrofulara Intrinsic
• Lapacho Intrinsic
• Probiotic
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin B
• MultiVitamin
• BAB 1
• CLA-K
• Whey Protein
• Vitamin E
• Mepron
• Zithromax

The items I started last night/this morning and I marked which ones were NEW overall and which ones were NEW formulas for me and which ones I've been on before:

• New: Cerebromax - started at 1 drop x twice daily - on Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays only
• New: Spinalmax - started at 1 drop x twice daily on Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays only.
• New: Matrix Support - started at 1 drop x twice daily on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays only.
• Old: Tox Ease GL - FULL DROPPER (this is not new to me) x twice daily
• New Formula: Solray D Spray (has Vitamin D and K) - started at 1 spray x twice daily
• New Formula: Methyl B12 Spray  - started at 1 spray x twice daily
• Old: Lymph 2  - FULL DROPPER (this is not new to me) x twice daily
• Old: Hawthorn Intrinsic - 1/2 dropper (not new, but body is not ready for full dropper) x twice daily
• Old: Vitamin C - start at 1 Gram x twice daily, but will ramp up quickly b.c it's not new x twice (might get up to three times a day) daily
• Old: Vitamin B - 2 at bed time
• Old:  MultiVitamin - 1 am, 2 at bedtime 

The Lymph 2 MUST be taken away from food and other supplements.  So I must take that one as soon as I wake up and about 20 minutes before bed and other supplements. 

I will be slowly moving up in dosage on the first three items and also slowly adding in some other items next week.  However, today, tomorrow and Saturday I will focus strictly on these 11 items and increasing the first three things by one drop per dosage per day (IE by Saturday I hope to be taking 3 drops x twice daily).  It's hard to know what are side effects from herxing, detoxing and simply the supplements not agreeing with me.  I am to add one at a time and every few days add a new one.  Last night I started 2 new formulas and this morning I started 3 new things (they must be taken together).  The rest of the stuff I've taken before which is why I started off with 11 things today. 

I really need this to work.  I'm in a great deal of pain. 

Confirmation

I had my follow up today.  I was pretty much bluntly honest.  I haven't had a good health day since before my last visit. Someone asked me what were my symptoms since getting out of remission.  What aren't my symptoms?  Well, here is a list of symptoms that I have endured over the last month.

• Headaches
• Neck Pain
• Shoulder Pain
• Elbow Pain
• Finger/Hand Joint Pain
• Hip Pain
• Knee/Shin Pain
• Ankle Pain
• Feet Pain
• Leg Pain
• Lower Back Pain
• Itching (mainly on face or arms, though occasionally on legs)
• Sneezing
• Comprehension difficulty (understanding what people say - especially on the phone, but I've noticed lately that I've even had trouble understanding things that I normally comprehend)
• Chills
• Sweats
• Fatigue
• Twitching (mainly head/arms/hands, but feet/legs occasionally)
• Breathing difficulty (sometimes can't get a deep breath) 
• Coughing
• Fevers
• Light Sensitivity
• Noise Sensitivity
• Ear Pulsing
• Lung/Side Pain

The worst symptoms that affect my overall daily experience are the neck pain, headaches and fatigue.  Although all of the other pain things can affect how it impacts my daily life. 

I haven't been on any "killer" medications or homeopathics in 6 days.  I thought that by today my body would have stabilized, but that has not been the case. So over the next few weeks I will be working on some things that hopefully will help release the toxin load in my body to help my body stabilize. Then, I will slowly add in the "killer" things focusing mainly on Babesia. So I will restart only two antibiotics:  Zithromax & Mepron.  Omnicef and Doxy will stay on the back-burner for now.  We briefly talked about IVs, but we'll push those out again simply due to financial restraints. I will take one day at a time.   I admit it.  I am overwhelmed. When I think about how well I was doing 2 or 3 years ago, I get extremely upset. 

Small World, Big Memories

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of supporting a friend.  I met this friend in January of this year.  We have the same non-Lyme passion of early childhood education.  I knew God had big plans for her from the very first day we met.  Long story short, she's the director of a new child care center that's faith based.  They haven't had their first official day, but yesterday was open house.  She asked me a few weeks ago if I would be interested in coming up and having dinner afterwards with our former professor (now friend).  I typically say I probably can and then health reasons lead me to cancel.  I said I probably could and waited for the other shoe to drop.  Although I didn't feel my best, I put on my big girl britches (yes I said britches) and drove out to the boondocks (yes I said boondocks) to see my friend get her groove on at her open house. 

When I meet new people for the first time, I can be awkwardly shy.  I'm not sure if they notice and it maybe that I only feel awkward on the inside. This was going to be a night of awkwardly shy.  I knew it, but I also knew that I would at least know two people there and once you get to know me good luck getting me to be quiet if I'm feeling chatty.  I was there for quite some time and had spoken with the associate pastor several times.   At one point, we were alone in the hallway and he asked me where I was from.  Well, the funny thing around here is that most people are "from" somewhere else.  So I simply use my two word answer, "North Carolina."  He said he realized that, but where in North Carolina. 

It's at this point I have to really dig down and think.  It was obvious he knew I wasn't from the county I live in (those born and raised here in this county have a most definitive accent), but what do I say because it's kind of a story.  Well, I decided to be honest because well I was in a church and I was speaking to a pastor.  So I blurt out that I'm from ( J - - - - - - ) until I moved to ( O - - - - -) and then I went to Western Carolina and finally moved to where I live now.   Well the first town I list, no one ever knows where that is.  Ever.  Most people have it confused with another town which is much much bigger, but then he said something about it being near the border.  I was impressed with his knowledge of my little tiny town. 

I'm not sure if I've ever shared, but I have these dreams.  I can dream about something and it either has happened or will happen.  Not every dream comes true, but some do.  It's very strange.  Some are very specific (like the time I dreamed that I met my friend from childhood as an adult - I hadn't seen him since we were children - yet in my dream I could see exactly what he looked like as an adult - then when I saw him and it wasn't a planned meeting, I knew it was him because our happenstance meeting happened exactly like my dream).  I can go months and months without dreaming about people from J - - - - - - and then I'll dream about it for a week at a time. 

Back to my story.  A little bit after I told him a little bit of my story, I left him to talk to my friend.  We're hanging out when all the sudden the pastor walks in with another lady and her child and says that we need to connect.  Most of the time when this happens, it's about Lyme Disease.  He knew about my Lyme Disease and I was just assuming that maybe this lady was needing some information.  I was already thinking in my head about whether I had any advocacy stuff in my car when he said something about how we needed to connect because we were both from "J - - - - - -."  Honestly my first thought was that she was probably from the "other town" because people get *that* confused.   

I introduce myself and tell her my maiden name and she tells me hers.  Well her name sounded familiar in a way that I knew we probably knew her, but that we weren't close friends at the time simply because our ages were different (4 years in elementary school is a huge difference). We started talking about the area.  It was awesome.  Even though we didn't get to talk very long, it was nice knowing someone that knew all the areas I remembered. I explained where I used to live and she knew exactly the house I was talking about.  I told her my friends and she knew most of their names.

I think we are shaped largely by where we spend our youth.  Some of my most vivid memories come from the time when I lived in J - - - - - -.  I missed it so much when we moved so I would relive things in my head every night before I went to sleep.  I would say my friend's names over and over again so I wouldn't forget.  As an adult, I remember the weirdest things.  I remember the really really really long metal slide at the church.  Now I will tell you that I thought I was just thinking it was extremely long because of my size and things as adults often look tiny in comparison to what you remember, but I mentioned this slide recently to someone and they too commented on it's extreme length when I said I remembered the metal slide at the church.  I remember sliding down this slide in my blue snowflake dress and getting rust on my dress.  I remember eating pancakes on Sundays at church and once they were running out and my friend (who was a boy, but not my boyfriend) gave me his pancake because I wanted another one.  I remember taking communion on the 5th Sunday of a month.  I remember being shocked when they allowed me to be an acolyte and actually carry a flame down the aisle and light a candle.

I remember the fun summer of swimming.  I remember my favorite pink bathing suit which was a two piece.  I remember walking from the pool to the store across the street to pick up candy (Now & Laters, Fun Dip, Razzles, Boston Baked Beans, Pop Rocks, Big League Chew, etc. and my brother loved to get Atomic Fireballs).  I remember having to sit on the side of the pool once every hour.  The lifeguards said it was  necessary, but I thought it was because the adults wanted some adult pool time without us kids in the way.  I remember being scared to dive off the board.  I remember really only doing it twice in my entire life.  The last time was such an mortifying moment that I have refused to dive or jump in a pool since.  I remember the basic instinct of trust.  All of my friend's moms were my extra moms.  I remember eating the best banana pudding on the planet from a restaurant that I can't remember.  I remember HUGE trees.  These things were massive and I would love to know if they were truly as massive as I remember. 

I have a wish.  I would love for all of my old friends to be in one place and for all of us to get together as adults.  I've seen a lot of them in the last few years, but I haven't seen all of them.  Now I'm not naive, I know we aren't 10 to 12 anymore.  I know people have changed.  I would like to think that if I had stayed there that we would have all stayed best friends through high school.  I realize now that we got the best of each other before the drama of hormones and influx of new friends at middle school.   However, it would be nice to create new memories with them instead of the images I have in my head of all of us being 10 to 12.

Re-introducing myself to all of you

This is taken from bits and pieces of old blogs and plus some new information.  I want to reintroduce myself to all of you for all the new readers. I began this blog entitled Living the Lyme Life in September of 2008.  I had already been in treatment for Lyme for 18 months and wish that I had begun the blog earlier. Although if I had started the blog earlier, the name would have been titled:  Living a symptom filled day with no actual diagnosis life. Quite a mouth full.


My name is Jennifer and this is my blog.  I began the fight of my life in 1995.  I wrote specifically on the years between 1995 and 2007 on a blog entry entitled Jennifer's Background Story.  This was specifically about when my fight began and the doctors I saw.  It talks about some of my experiences and also my experience the first time I saw my Lyme Literate Doctor. Since my Lyme diagnosis in 2007, I've dabbled in other diagnoses too. I've had mineral deficiency, progesterone deficiency, heavy metal toxicity, multiple co-infections, anemia and multiple other health issues. My PICC Line was inserted into my right arm in July 2008 and I battled keeping it safe daily until February 2009.  Thanks to my wonderful nurses, doctors, insertion team and my husband, I was able to keep my line much longer than I should have.  I used it right up until the night before it was finally pulled and based on how it looked when we pulled it, it probably should have been pulled a few months prior. 

 Most people assume that because I had a PICC line that it was used for antibiotic therapy.  However, it was not used for this.  We used the PICC line for IV vitamins, minerals and other supplemental therapies such as Chelation for the heavy metal toxicity.  In addition to these things, I used an experimental IV protocol for about 9 months.  It is no longer available and I rarely talk about it because of it's controversial nature.  However, I feel like that protocol did more for me than any other protocol combined.  It brought me to remission until the past fall when I slipped out of remission.

I tried Low Dose Naltraxone and while it has worked for others, it gave me terrible headaches.  We finally gave up.  I also used a lot of hyperbaric therapy. I feel it worked really well on some of my symptoms (especially my headaches and fatigue), but due to financial struggles I stopped going as much as I was.  I've utilized a variety of homeopathic remedies and still use some of them even today, but a few months ago I began a new oral antibiotic regiment.  I am supposed to be on four different antibiotics, but I am only able to tolerate three of the four.  My doctor and I will make a call here shortly about whether or not I am in need of another PICC line to use for supplemental and antibiotic therapies.  This worries me, but if I have to undergo this again I feel that I am a little better prepared. 

Currently, I feel that about 90 percent of my life revolves around my Lyme symptom. It stinks, but I live with it.  My husband and I got married in April of 2000.  He is my rock.  He supports me with his quirky sense of humor.  His determination to get to the root of my health issues saved my life.  Together we have rescued dogs.  We have an adopted lab mix from the SPCA and a rescued Dachshund.  We recently moved from our first home into a new home.  Back in December of 2011, I quit my position at a child care center.  It took me a while to do this and I struggled with the decision.  However after my two weeks notice was over, my boss offered me a substitute position and I go in every  now and then to help out. It gives me a little therapy for the soul.  

Sitting here

My head hurts so badly that I can see colors of pink and green.   I'm trying to push through the pain because I feel guilty for just sitting here day after day.  I shouldn't feel guilty.  I have this disease that no person (without Lyme) could understand.    So today, I am pushing through the pain.  I started with one load of laundry.  I simply hung up a load of my husband's shirts.  Then I pushed myself to wash and dry and fold a load of towels.  Then I pushed myself again to wash and dry and put away another load of laundry. Now, I wash sheets and blankets that have been sitting in a dirty clothes bin since May.   My goal today is to simply get through all of the laundry in the house.  I want to be able to look at the bottom of every single laundry basket including the load of shirts that I want to hang dry instead of putting them in the dryer. I'm getting there, but I hurt.  I hurt so badly that I just want to cry.  I want to crawl into the bed and cover my head in hopes to stop the pain, but that won't help.  So I sit here doing what will help.  The laundry.  It will make me feel better to get to the bottom of the baskets. I sit here. I don't remember the last day I didn't have some sort of headache. 

Update

Health:  I've been having a difficult time the past few weeks.  I am on three oral antibiotics (Omnicef, Mepron and Zithromax).  I attempted to start the fourth one (Doxycycline), but I began vomiting with that one.  I think it's the combination of the four that did me in.   I've had a multiple of symptoms over the last two weeks.  They vary in severity.   I've had a lot of pain.  I've experienced headaches as well as pain in my neck, shoulders, arms, hands, lower back, legs, knees, feet, lung and side.   I've experienced some twitching, chills, sweats, fatigue and breathing difficulty.  I've also experienced occasional sneezing, nausea and itching. 

One of my most frustrating symptoms, other than the pain, is with comprehension. I had slowly realized it was happening, but a few weeks ago I was talking with my friend on the phone.  I realized that I had no idea what he was saying.  I couldn't comprehend him at all.  I was too embarrassed to tell him I couldn't understand his words or their meanings so I changed the subject and rushed him off the phone.  Comprehension is better in person, but phone calls lately have been brutal. It's not all the time and it's not just one or two people.  When it happens, it's frustrating.  It is what it is, but it doesn't mean I want it to continue happening. 

Home:  We've not made any new changes to the house since the last update.  I've used our upright steamer to straighten out a couple of curtains.  I'll eventually get them all done, but it is taking forever because my stamina isn't holding up. 

Very Quiet

I've been very quiet this month, mostly because I just simply didn't have much to say.  So here's an update.  Health, Work and Home.

It's hard for me to be so extra positive when I feel so extra terrible.  In June, I worked ZERO days.  I barely left the house by myself.  In fact, I may have only left the house by myself once (maybe twice) in June.  July has been a little different.  I've worked twice and left the house by myself several times, but it's because I've forced myself to. 

The antibiotics are doing a number on me.  I'm on three of them currently.  Supposed to be four, but haven't found the courage to take the one that I know will kick me down. I *will* start the fourth one this week because I want to have been on that one at least 4 weeks before I see the doctor again. 

I'm on a multitude of pharmaceuticals. I'm on a multitude of integrative supplements (herbal remedies and vitamins).  Some I've been on before and some are new.

I mentioned that we had living room furniture, but didn't mention what we purchased etc.  Maybe one of these days I'll write a post about our furniture karma. 

We're settling into our new home.  I absolutely love it.  Downstairs is looking pretty phenomenal actually.  I have room for company to come spend the day.  I rarely have company, but it's nice that they'll have a place to sit now.  Originally we were going to buy whatever it was we wanted for living room furniture.  We were going to be cautious and not extravagant, but we weren't going to get cheapy cheap furniture either.  At our old house, we had a futon.  -- a futon.  you know in lieu of a couch.  a FUTON.  which was not comfortable for sitting or for sleeping.

We looked online at the big stores in Raleigh (so that we wouldn't have to go in person unless we found something we wanted to sit in) and visited smaller furniture stores in our area.  Then one day while we were waiting for a friend to arrive at a restaurant (we had called a friend to meet us out to eat and it was going to take longer for him to get there than us -), we stopped by Big Lots.  We go to Big Lots on occasion, but honestly we rarely actually buy anything from Big Lots.  So we strolled aisle by aisle and then hit the furniture section.  We saw a few, "actually those aren't bad" pieces and got word that friend had arrived at the restaurant.  We went back to Big Lots four times before deciding we'd go ahead and buy three pieces.  One Couch, One Loveseat and One Recliner for less the price we would have spent on one couch. 

So I've already found "my spot" (ala Sheldon Cooper).  I pretty much only sit (or lay down) in the left hand side of the couch.  Occasionally, I move to the recliner. 

Here it is.  There is room behind the couch - we have the fish tank (which is huge and pretty, but unused at the moment) . The side table there and ottoman are temporary placements.  We aren't sure where they'll go, but for now that's where they stay.  It gives me a place for my drinks and food when I'm in my spot.  I love love love the color of the curtains and the color of the chair.  Speaking of colors - so the chairs LOOK black, but they also look brown.  It's the most bizarre thing.  When the curtains and blinds are open, it looks brown.  (for the reference, I wanted brown -- brown dark brown brown - but we chose these because the only brown  -- brown dark brown brown Big Lots had were not comfortable, this set was comfortable)

First Photo:  Foreground:  Living Room showing the Peacock color chair and the peacock color curtains and the recliner.  Background to the left 1/2 Bathroom door, Background Middle kitchen, Background Archway leads to garage, laundry room and master bedroom.

 

This shows a portion of the living room.  You see the curtains and seating area of the living room.

 

Well, I have to go rest.  I've been up for one hour and need to go lay back down.  It stinks, but I'm learning to live with it for now.  At least I have a comfortable place to rest.

Follow Up 1 week ago

I had my follow up 8 days ago.  I've really had to digest this last appointment. 

Each appointment, we get closer and closer to pulling out the big dogs.  By big dogs, I mean IV antibiotics.   I truly believe that if we weren't having such a tremendous heat wave (even though this week is cool -- and if my appt had been this week, our decision may have been different) he would have scheduled me to have a picc line inserted.  However, we had a string of over 100 degree days and a line with that weather (and humidity) is just doomed from the beginning especially with my skin sensitivity to the line, dressings, cleaning solutions.  It's much better to be a cooler temp. 

So with that said:  My next follow up is near the end of August.  This weekend, I will start all 4 of my oral antibiotics along with a multitude of supplements. I will be on these through my follow up.  Depending on how I do will depend on the next step, but based on previous attempts --- more than likely at the beginning of September,  I will be having another picc line inserted to do my first ever IV antibiotics.  It will also give me access for other types of IVs as well. 

Truthfully, I should have started this process in January - but it takes my mind a while to catch up with what my body needs.  I was fighting this process and now I'm fighting Lyme and Babesia and apparently Mycoplasma Pneumoniae.  I'm tired of fighting, but I can't afford to give up.  I've given myself a medication respite with approval from my LLMD so I could get some stuff out of my body, but I really need to restart them.  I work a long day today (but Jennifer, you quit back in December you say --- well I went on substitute status and they really need me to work today --- ).  I've known for a few weeks I'd work today which was one of the reason I went on med respite this week so that I wouldn't be having a herx reaction while working.

I've worked a couple of 6 hour shifts since quitting in December, but no more than that.  So pray that I can make it for the 9 hours I'm there (plus the scant hour of traveling) without falling asleep and without mental confusion and without great pain. 

The Heat Is On

It has been HOT in North Carolina.  I've heard lots of jokes on facebook lately about faces melting instead of sweating, how their sweat is actually sweating and just in general about how hot it is out there.

Friday we reached a tied all time record high of 105.  This has only happened at our airport 3 or 4 times since the record keeping began.  Then yesterday, we broke another daily high and tied the all time record high temperature again of 105.  When we walk out of the house, the heat hits your face.  It's overwhelming.  You know it's hot when at 8pm at night the temperature is still in triple digits.

I try to keep the perspective that my army friend is in his army gear over seas where the temps are reaching 135 degrees, but honestly it doesn't help much.  Hot is hot is hot.  We feel blessed to have kept our power although it did flicker a few times on Friday.  For me, hot weather causes problems.  It causes me to feel downright lousy.   The best way I can explain it is that I struggle to breath and I feel icky inside.  I get out of breath from the front of the house to the mailbox. 

My husband and I have been in and out of the house since we moved.  When he's home, we're on the go.  We just really enjoy going out.  Today, we've pretty much stayed home with exception of about an hour when we left to pick up a curtain rod for the window in our ,non breakfast nook, breakfast nook area.

** House Update **

Slowly, but surely we are getting there.  The dining room looks awesome.  The living room is now functional.  My goal for the week is to get the bedroom looking awesome, which entails emptying boxes that are just in the middle of the floor. The secondary goal is to get my office looking better, which also entails emptying boxes or at least putting them in a location that isn't so obvious when you walk in the door that we've recently moved in.  Then I will feel like the first floor is company ready.  Our only big purchase for the first floor left is the heavy duty blinds that will help keep out light (when we want it) and heat.  We know exactly what we want, but have to wait a few weeks to order them.    There are a few curtain and rods that need to be bought too, but we'll wait for those as well.  As soon as I get the first floor organized, I will post some pictures of "before" and "after."

Struggling

I have been struggling.  Yesterday was the first day I had driven in 8 days.  Yesterday I had the shakes and had no strength.  My best friend called to ask if I'd join him for eating. In the "old" days, I would have said absolutely, thrown on some clothes and been there in 15 minutes max (5 to throw on clothes and brush my teeth and 10 to drive there).  Yesterday, it took 30 minutes.  Not really that big of a deal, but triple the time to get ready because I could barely squeeze the toothpaste onto my toothbrush.

I decided to get something simple.  The waitress brought over rolls and our drinks.  I began to tear the paper off the straw.  Correction:  I *tried* to tear the paper off the straw.  Now sometimes when I struggle at the simple tasks, I simply ask for help.  But other times, I'm so focused at the task at hand that forget that asking for help is an option. The waitress was taking our order and I'm focused on her.  Then I'm trying to get the straw out of the wrapper. I'm getting so frustrated at myself for not being able to open the straw that I try a different method when ... IT happens.  The straw finally pops out of the paper and my hand goes flying and whacks the glass over.  I had had that kind of day.  It (literally and figuratively) was almost my last straw. 

A string of "sorries" come out of my mouth as my best friends knows exactly what to say.  No harm no foul.  Neither one of us got wet (much less soaked) and we managed to keep the drink from going everywhere.  The waitress was quick in motion and I kept muttering things like, "should have stayed home,  it's been this kind of day, sorry" and I was trying to keep my tears from falling from the outside.

Waitress brought out a new glass with ... A NEW STRAW.  Seriously?  So I start to struggle with opening yet another straw and he says, "try tearing off at the end."  Now this is an easy solution and if my brain hadn't been cognitively struggling the solution would have come to me.  Two things: A.  It took me 2 or 3 minutes to tear a little piece off the end to get the straw to come through.  B:  Some people would have just taken the straw from me and opened it.  My best friend knows me better than that.  A simple solution offered was better than snatching the straw away and doing it himself. 

I've been so lonely lately that it was nice to get out and do something with anyone, but eating with my best friend is much more a comfort.  Although I was embarrassed at what happened, something like that is easier to handle with my husband or my best friend.  They have a great, "it happened now let's move on" attitude and later (much much much later) when I'm feeling much better --- it might be brought up in a humorous way. 

So yes, I'm struggling.  I've kind of forced myself back into hermit status because I don't want others to see me at a weak state.  I miss my friends and children at work (haven't worked since May 17th).  I also miss my friends and family.  I haven't really seen anyone in June other than my husband and best friend.  Of course my husband and I go out, but that's not really *seeing* people. That's us going to get what we need for the house and coming back home.  At least, we have furniture set up so I'm comfortable at the new house.  I have my choice of recliner, loveseat, couch or bed.  If I'm exhausted, I sleep. If I'm tired, I watch tv.  If I have any bit of energy at all, I try to do something in the house.  I wear my pajamas all day unless given a reason to change.  IE  Hubby comes home and needs to go to Lowe's.  Although Lowe's isn't my favorite store, lately if he goes to Lowe's I go with him because at least it gets me out of the house for a little bit.

So yes, I'm struggling.  By now I was supposed to be on 4 antibiotics.  I've only made it to 2 because I know what the next one is going to do to my body. I'm just not ready for that quite yet because I'm struggling.

Dad Memories on Father's Day

This is a long post because I have posted one dozen of my favorite memories about my Dad!  

I thought that this year for Father's Day I would post a bunch of random memories that I have with my Dad.  When I was in elementary school, I was very much a momma's girl.  My Dad worked pretty far away so his commute was a long one. To top that off, he was a band director so that meant during marching season he was gone more than not.  However when I started middle school, he became my band director.  I also got to spend a lot of time with him traveling. I think this is when things turned around and I became very much a Daddy's girl.

1.  I'd like to start this post off with random "snow" memories that I have with my Dad.  When I was little, it snowed.  Most Dad's make snowmen and help their little girls make snow angels.  Not my Dad- my Dad made me a snow elephant.  It was and still is the coolest thing I've ever seen.  It was absolutely awesome.

2.  My parents bought me a small car the Christmas before my 2nd semester of college.  My Dad drove in his car and I drove in my car to make sure that I was safe and sound (because it was a 300 plus mile trip to college).  Well we got into our cars and started to drive away from my grandparent's house and it began to snow.  We thought it shouldn't be that bad because we hadn't heard anything about a snow system coming through. So we continued to drive.  We got to the interstate and the further we got up the mountains the worse the snow got.  I was getting very nervous. This was well before we had cell phones too.  I nearly peed my pants on that drive up the mountain.  So Dad pulled over on the side of the interstate (this was after we had seen numerous cars slide off the mountain --- yes I may be exaggerating, but I honestly remember cars slipping and sliding off the mountain!) and I slid over.  He drove us to the nearest exit and we stopped at a motel thinking that the snow would ease off at some point.  We were in the same town as my college band director so eventually Dad made a call to "Bob" and we left the hotel to spend the night with "Bob" and a college crew of students that had also gotten stuck nearby.  Now while it was scary, that was one of the funnest times of my life.  The next day we shoveled off the car and made onto college.  My college didn't actually start on time because people couldn't get there.  I got to spend 3 or so days on campus with some of my best college friends just hanging out.  It was a blast!  Don't ask me how Dad got back to his car because I don't remember!

3.  Another ice storm:  This had to have been December of 1997.  I had just started dating my husband and he had come to see me at my parent's home.  He was on his way back home when something happened to his car so he drove it back to my parent's home.  He picked up whatever part it was and started working on the car in my parent's driveway.  My Dad stood there amazed at all he could do.  Then, it started sleeting.  Rob kept on working under a tarp.  My Dad continued to stand there watching Rob work.  It was in that moment that I realized I finally was dating a man that my Dad really liked!  :}  It sleeted really bad that day and Rob had to spend the night.  It just happened to be Christmas Eve!  So Rob got to witness my Dad's "Samta" impression early in the morning.  I was so excited it was like Christmas -- oh wait, it was.  Back story:  I don't know what year it started --- but every Christmas morning Dad would walk down the hall way doing his best Ho Ho Ho to "wake" everyone up.  (as if we were really asleep!)

****
Riding with my Dad:

4 When I was in middle & high school, I had to ride with my Dad to go to school.  As previously mentioned, my Dad was the band director.  I went to school with him because the school was 20 minutes from our house. It wasn't my district school, but because he taught there --- I was able to attend.  I felt lucky because who else got to spend 40 minutes of uninterrupted time with their Dad as a teen? So I was learning how to play the flute (my Dad taught me!) and I would practice any chance I would get.  After all, he was my teacher and he knew how long I practiced.  I couldn't lie on the how long did you practice sheets!  Well one of the ways I'd get my time in was on the drive to and from school.  I'd roll down the window, stick my flute out the window and play.  The first year I learned Rocky Top, the 2nd worst song ever.  I played it a lot because I was worried I would mess it up for the fireman's day parade.  If I could have figured out later how to spin a flag or rifle in the car, I would have done that too!

5. On most trips when I wasn't practicing, he would plug in a tape.  This wasn't just any tape, but a musical arrangement tape by Hal Leonard.  He must have had dozens and dozens of these tapes and listen we did on the way home.

6. Another thing that happened on our way home was that we would stop by a store and pick up goodies. I typically picked up a nu-grape in a glass bottle so I could tear off the paper and some sort of pastry item such as a honey-bun.  We did this almost every day. 

***

Wedding related memories:

7. So when I was in elementary school, I fell off my bike. I bit through my tongue and it bled a lot.  I cried a lot. There was a terrible scar, but my parent's promised that it would get better before I got married.  Fast forward to March 27, 1999.  Rob proposed.  We went to my parent's house, but they weren't there!  I called my grandparents and found out Dad was on the golf course.  I told Granny I needed to talk to them and if they could send them home to sign my FAFSA paperwork that would be great.  Of course Granny knew that something else was up and that I wouldn't call in such a hurry if it was just FAFSA paperwork.  So she got it out of me.  My Granny was the first person I told that I was getting married. She sent them on their way later.  I told them I was disappointed because my tongue scar didn't heal and I was getting married!


8. Every wedding my family would attend - my Dad would sit nearest to me and sometime during the ceremony whisper, "Elope."  At some point when I was a little older and actually knew what eloping meant, I'd whisper back, "Can't elope."  Honestly, I can't remember how many weddings this happened.  Well, my Granny called me a few days before the rehearsal and asked if there was anything special I needed that I had not picked up yet.  I told her that I needed her to go to the grocery store and pick up a  very special fruit. So at the rehearsal, I presented Dad with a cantaloupe.  :) On the back of the wedding programs themselves, I had typed up Cantaloupe at the bottom of it.

*** a lot of Elementary school memories ***

9. My Dad put up a basketball goal.   Well, I spent a LONG time out at the basketball goal chunking basket after basket.  Missing goal after goal.  Dad came out and stood approximately where the three point line would be if there had been one and said, "If you make this goal, I'll give you ---" I *think* it was 20 bucks.  Wouldn't you know it, I shot and made that goal.  Easiest 20 bucks I ever made!

10. When I was in 5th or 6th grade, I was granted permission to choose a paint color for my room.  I chose Carolina blue!  My Dad didn't try to talk me into a more girly or neutral color.   

11.  Now, what is one thing a Dad DREADS when he finds out he's going to be the Dad of a daughter? (other than when said daughter starts to date) ---  Well, I can tell you what it would be in my house --- SLEEPOVER PARTIES!  I think it was when I turned 12 I invited 10 or so girls over to the house for a slumber party!  Dad made the best of a bad situation, "DON'T EMBARRASS ME DAD!"  He bought us plenty of food and pretty much stayed out of our way.  He came out when we needed more food or if we needed him to check outside for the pesky boys that showed up to try to scare us, but we were wise to their ways! 

12. Perhaps one of my favorite stories of all time involve me, my little brother, a video store and a car.  Dad ran into the video store to either return a movie or get a new rental.  While my lil bro & I were in the tiny car, he began to get figity.  I was fussing at him (of course) to get back in his seat when all the sudden the car started rolling backwards onto the huge busy street.  I remember screaming, lil bro was oblivious that anything was wrong and Dad came running out of the video store. He grabbed the bumper of the car and single-handedly stopped the car from rolling.

Happy Father's Day to my favorite Dad of all times!

 

The Pests ---

My husband and I don't do pressure sales tactics, whether it is door to door or over the phone.  We just find them to be .. well .. pests.  They use tactics that we don't agree with to try to pressure us into a product or service that we may or may not need.  Honestly the moment I see the phone has a number I don't recognize or there is someone at the door I don't recognize, I shut down.  I get annoyed and the more they talk the more annoyed I get.  I've used many tactics to get them to stop talking before I get really annoyed, but sometimes the pests just won't go away!

Example A:  A man knocked on the door.  Strike one against him was that I had been asleep and he knocked on the door that it startled me awake.  I ignore it and he knocked again and again and again until finally I went to the door.  He asks me if I'm the "Mom" of the house.  I tell him I'm not the Mom and before I could finish my sentence (IE he wasn't listening!) he tells me he's going around to speak to all the mother's of my neighborhood to tell them about this ---- and I interrupt him.  I tell him that I am not a mother and I'm not interested in whatever it is he's trying to sell me.  He interrupts me again.  Well, can I speak to YOUR mother?  He got an eye roll at that point and I told him that my mother didn't live with me.  He interrupts me again.  Can I speak to your father?  Sigh --- it was all I could do to contain myself.  First he woke me up, then he wouldn't let me complete my sentences to let him know that I was the adult female of the household and that we did not have any children ---- I finally told him we were not interested and to please leave.  

Example B:  Another man knocked on the door. This was the same day as the first pest. In fact, this was the FOURTH person of the day to knock on my door.  I answer and surprise surprise -- it was a pest control company.  The pest control company that works with our builder on the homes in our subdivision.  To bring you up to speed, the builders of our home have this particular company come in and do the termite inspections and put these tubes inside the walls so that if we choose to use them as our pest control company --- they will put their chemicals into the tubes to eliminate the pests from our home.  On our WALK THROUGH --- not our final walk through, but our first walk through, there was a note on the door to my husband saying for us to contact them.  Well we didn't because we lost our paperwork between the walk through and the move in date.  We got another note from them, but it was addressed to another family.

So the guy shows up at our home.  I answer the door and I'm already irritated because of all the other solicitors that have called and shown up at our door. Plus, he called me by another name than my own.  When I corrected him, he told me that wasn't right ... I think I know my name!  So then he welcomes me to the neighborhood and tells me that he's the rep for our pest control company. He wants to tell me about the services they offer.  He tells me a little bit about the termite and then he starts in on the pest control.  So I am up front and tell him that we already have a pest control company and in fact, we had just had a treatment earlier in the week.  Well, he continues on and on about how wonderful his company is and how terrible it is that we didn't contact them when they sent out the letter.  He makes several ridiculous statements basically insinuating that I'm an idiot about pests, insects and TICKS.  Oh, no he didn't!

Then, I asked him what was their special tick treatment to apply to the yard, trees, pipes, baseboards, etc that they could offer and if it took care of and I listed off the top of my head 4 ticks.  Then I listed off the diseases that ticks could give and that I know all about ticks, tick borne diseases and that unless he was willing to pay off my contact for our other pest control company and pay me money for my time to listen to him ramble --- that he could leave.  His response was that they didn't have a special treatment just for fleas and ticks.  They would put stuff in the pipes in the house and that would take care of everything -- because it wouldn't get in my house. 

It was all I could do to say .. so t hen I'm not allowed to go outside since you won't be spraying special tick treatments on the grass, trees, around the house, etc.  He said, "Well not every tick carries diseases and Lyme is rare around here."  I told him .. well I must be REALLY rare because I have Lyme, Bartonella and Babesia.  I was so annoyed that we've pretty much decided we're going with another termite company even if we have to pay to have another initial spray to be done because that man was a pest!  Oh get this -- when I told him I needed to put up a no solicitation sign .. he said, "but you're my customer, I'm not soliciting."  Oh how I wish I had had a witty come back for him! 


Example C (what to do to get my business) I will say that two weeks ago (about 4 days before the annoying pest man) a couple of ladies were walking around the subdivision.  I went out to meet one of them because I was wanting to find out what their deal was.  They had been in our neighborhood all day.  She was really sweet and I sat down with her to talk.  She was from the Pest Control company we wound up going with. I actually talked with her for over an hour on the porch.  We talked about ticks, tick-borne illnesses and she left with a slew of information about Lyme Disease.  She told me that someone would come out and brush off all the spider webs from the house every visit.  She said that they would spread out this stuff on the grass on the first visit and also spray stuff around the house on the same visit. Then for free, they would come out a week or two later and spray a special flea and tick formula.  Normally the initial visit was rather expensive, but she felt so bad for me that she reduced the cost significantly.

The first guy came and did exactly what she said, but then made note that they wouldn't be back for at least a month.  I was upset about that since we had found 6 ticks in the previous week including 3 ticks the day the guy sprayed.  So I called the company and told them what I was told initially and that if they couldn't keep up their end of my contact then I'd have no choice but to cancel and get a full refund!  Money talks. The lady got me a second appointment and the other guy came today. He was extremely nice and was extremely liberal with the tick and flea spray.    He said it was formulated to kill them both on contact.  If I saw anything between now and my next treatment to call and they'd do another treatment for free. 

So now, we should be bug free -- and flea and tick free.  and -- PEST FREE.  ;) 

IV yesterday

I went in yesterday to get blood work.  I woke up yesterday morning thirsty.  That is never a good sign on nurse trying to find a vein day.   So I started drinking like a thirsty dog.  I arrived and did my ritual. (heating pad).  She called me over to look and look and look.  She must have looked for 20 minutes and then asked, "If you had a choice, which would you rather have --- the blood work or the IV."  Not really much a choice, but I told her I thought my LLMD really needed the blood work, so the blood work.

So, she looked some more.  I leaned over to try to get the blood pumping down my arm.  Then she said with little confidence that she was going to try this lil tiny one in my hand, on top of my hand. The one of the four veins I call "the baby IV spot."  Ya know cause most women that have babies, get an iv about there in their hand.

So she sticks and I wince.  She messes with it and tells me that I can stop squeezing (had a little ball to squeeze) that she got it.  She tries to draw the blood and nothing comes out.  Another lady comes over and hands her a syringe. She syringed out probably 6 ML's of blood which filled 1 and 1/2 vials of blood and then it stopped --- she made a quick judgement call to go ahead and start the IV and if it was enough, it was enough and if it wasn't then oh well.  She figured that if it wasn't enough, at least I got an IV out of that painful stick. And if it was enough, then I got both!

It's been a while since an IV site was sore the entire IV time.  I need to keep an eye on it to make sure there are no issues over the next few days.  It was bruised pretty badly last night, but this morning it looks better.  So whenever I get this particular IV (it's a Vitamin C plus other things bag), I feel like I smell.  terrible.  Some people say that I don't smell at all while others say they can smell what I'm talking about, but that it's not as bad as I think it is.  I don't know if those people are just being nice or if it really isn't as bad as I think it is.  Hopefully my friends would tell me if I really smelled bad.  Showering and bathing doesn't help.   I still smell afterwards (to me anyways).

I kind of joke now that there are no strangers just friends I haven't met yet.  Made two new friends yesterday.   Both fairly beginning in their stories of diagnosis.  I've been where they are.  They asked me if I was any better now than I was at the beginning.  In some ways, I'm the same.  In other ways, I'm much better.  Some symptoms I had at the beginning are gone.  I haven't had them in over four years.  While others are back after taking a 3 year hiatus.  But the way I view things has changed so in that way I'm much better.  It is what it is and I'm doing what I can to help myself.  I trust my doc completely and know that he & I work in a collaborative way. 

Pain

Sometimes it is hard to be in a good mood when I'm in pain.  :(  I hate that. I'd much rather be in a cheerful great mood. 

sheets of rain bring sheets of pain.

It rained.  A lot.  That caused major pain.

Been bracing my wrist the past few days.  I need to brace my ankle & knee. 

I hurt more and more. 

Guess the Mepron is doing it's job, but I don't like it very much. 

Friends

I have been thinking lately about people that come and go into our lives.  I have several friends that are going through a difficult time lately.  My friend Sarah is having her decompression surgery at the end of the month. She had a fundraiser and amazing people donated to help her family pay for the surgery.   My friend Tricia (that had the double lung transplant 4 years ago) is having rejection and is back in the hospital. She's making the most of a bad situation and is much more graceful than I could be in the same situation.    One of my best college friends had his children taken away from him for over a month.  I told him that the truth would come out and that he would get his kids back  Finally, the truth came out and he is getting them back.

I have friends that I have forgotten.  Not because I wanted to, but because their time in the season of my life ended.  With all the seizures I had in the mid-90's, I lost a lot of my friendship memories.  Some of them are coming back and some I suspect will be lost unless someone can help jog my memory.  In the process of packing and unpacking --- I found something.  One Valentine's Day I was given a box of chocolate.  In that box starting middle school and to my first semester of college, I put things in that meant something to me.  Mostly letters or post cards or something.

I saw the box and opened some of them and thought, "WHY on earth did I keep that?" Although I do remember how I felt when I got some of those letters and they will probably remain in the little box --- I saw a card.  I vaguely remembered the card and opened it up to read the note.  What's funny is that I think I needed this note today.  I woke up this morning in a terrible mood.  I felt like I couldn't accomplish anything and was getting frustrated.

I decided I would open up one box and see what was inside.  This one box had my small box inside.  I opened the small box and went through the layers of stuff.  I hid this box in a special place in my room in high school.  I grabbed the card and opened it up and read the message.  "Jennifer, I love you.  You keep your head up, no matter how much you don't want to!  You can do it Jennifer.  Use your own self determination.  You have plenty of it.  You just have to tap into it.  My prayers and my love are with you.  Smile. :)  Freda."  At the top of the card, it says, "After the rain, the moon rises like a pearl."

I have scrambled my brain to remember Freda.  I honestly can not put a single picture to her name.  I am hoping that someone else from my past can help me remember her.  The only thing I might can think is that maybe she was in one of my first semester college classes or on my hall.  She's on of the many people that came into my life at just the right moment and here she is possibly 17 years later impacting my life again and her words moved me to tears. 

Dear Freda,

Although I can't remember you or things we did together, I remember how you made me feel.  I would like to thank you so very much for writing words that would impact me at 19 and again at 36.

Jennifer (or as you must have called me --- Shorty -  see that's the other thing, not that many people do I allow to give me nicknames, much less write them --- so that tells me you must have been really special in my life for me to keep the note past the nickname you wrote at the top)

Tough-a-Lup-agus

This morning I woke up and had the feeling.  I don't get this feeling very often and I hate feeling this way.  It's not the physical pain (which was off the chart for about 6 hours), but the emotional pain.  I hate lying in bed, holding my head, crying and wishing I weren't in a place where I *hate*  it.  I try to be so positive and more or less inspirational and when I feel so badly that all I can do is huddle up into a ball while holding my head I don't feel positive.  I hate that feeling.  It's in that moment that I either want people surrounding me or I just want to be alone.  There is no in between.  This morning I wanted people around me.  I wanted someone there to hold my head or my hand and tell me that I was just going to be okay. I wanted someone to say that the herxheimer reaction wouldn't last forever and that no matter what I was going through that it would end. 

So I crouched into a ball and held my own head with one hand while clutching to my mouth with the other as I coughed.  Every cough brought pain.  I cried.  I prayed.  I answered a phone call from my best friend.  On one hand, I didn't want to talk on the phone.  But on the other hand, I knew his words would make me feel better.  Apparently, I am a Tough-a-lup-ugus, Toughalupugus indeed. 

I decided not to take my antibiotics this morning.  I didn't want anything else dying inside my body, but tonight --- I will go back to Mepron & Zithromax and do some more killing because I am a Toughalupugus.  In a week, I have found 6 ticks.  One on my husband, two on my dog and three dead in our sunroom (apparently hitched a ride on Dexter's back --- and Dexter's back killed them because he had been treated).  We hired a pest control company to come in and granulate the yard and spray the house.  They'll come back in a little over a week to do a special flea & tick treatment and hopefully we'll have the house done enough so that maybe they can come inside to check to insure we don't have a problem inside the house. 

Getting there

Yesterday, we focused on two rooms.  The laundry room and the dining room. 

The first time we walked into our new house, I knew of one huge change we had to make.  The laundry room had only one shelf.  My old tiny little closet of a laundry room had three shelves so I knew one of the first "additions" we would make would be to add shelving into the room.  So my husband worked on it for three hours yesterday. He's almost finished with the main portion.  We haven't decided how we want the washers and dryers yet (close side by side or spaced apart with the space in the middle).  If we move it all the way over to the left of the room, then there is enough room on the right hand side for the vacuum which was my preference.  However, it doesn't look symmetrical which annoys us.  So we'll play around with it for a while until we decide which way we want it.  He also has to putty up the holes for the old shelf and repaint.  We may have to lower the shelves a bit. It will take some time to decide.

Also while we were at Target yesterday, we saw a rust colored curtain.  So we picked up one (knowing if we picked up four that we'd hate them and have to return them, but if we picked up only one we'd love them and need to go pick up 3 more) and brought it back home.  Brought them home and saw that they really did match well.  In addition, it really matches our plates!

We went to Lowe's to return some blinds that didn't match.  We had picked them up on clearance and while they had the same color written on the outside --- the color had variance which did not work at all.  So we returned them.  While we were there, we picked up curtain rods to hang up our new curtains.  Then we glanced down the lighting aisle.  We really weren't going to pick up any new lights for the dining room quite yet and were quite conflicted with the selection. We were about to leave when we saw it ---- the light fixture we saw a few weeks ago, but the price was outrageous and we couldn't see spending that much money on a light fixture. 

We happened to look and realized that it was now on clearance and was in our we can afford price range. My husband put it together last night and will attempt to hang it tonight.  Then, I can't wait to get art work on the wall.  We're trying to decide whether to take our corner piece somewhere to get someone to refinish it.  I love love love the piece, but it still smells after weeks of cleaning it.  So I think we need to take it somewhere to get them to strip and refinish it.  We have to research it. 

Also, our refrigerator finally arrived.  We have to go to the grocery store because we lost all of our refrigerated food in the move.  I'm very happy with our new home.  We'll get everything in it's place eventually.

Lyme Myths and Misconceptions

I received an email about a month ago from Wego in regards to Lyme Myths and Misconceptions.   It was shortly after I started my new email for the Lyme Blog so I will be honest, I thought it was a scam.  At first, I didn't reply.  However, I decided to email the lady to find out how she located me and after I was satisfied it wasn't a scam --- I responded. 

I received an email yesterday with the link to the blog they wrote dispelling the top 4 myths in regards to Lyme.  Kenneth, Jenny & I were apparently the three she corresponded with in regards to the Lyme Myths. 

Without further ado:  The Blog Setting the Record Straight regarding Lyme Disease.  

http://blog.wegohealth.com/2012/05/31/setting-the-record-straight-lyme-disease/

Dose 1 of Mepron

One of the co-infections that ticks can give is called Babesia.  Some call it Babesiosis.  I call it a pain in my sweat glands.  Until recently, we didn't think Babesia was a problem.  Then, we realized Babesia was one of the many cocktail of things that the tick gave to me.  As soon as my hero said the words, I knew the word to follow would be Mepron. 

I've been scared of Mepron since about day 56 (just chose random day near the beginning) of my treatment.  I knew a woman that was on it.  She called it yellow paint.  To show you what it looks like, I did a google image search. 

I  do not know how my body is going to react, but I am terrified of this yellow medicine.   I was to start today.  I typically plan a start date and if a medicine worries me --- I wait and wait and wait.  BUT, my symptoms have been so bad lately that I knew waiting was not an option.  So --- today --- 15 minutes ago actually, I took my first 5 ML's of YELLOW PAINT. 

Honest Opinion:  Initial taste wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The aftertaste packed a punch, but not nearly as bad as Zithromax.  With Mepron, we are supposed to eat FATTY foods.  So I ate pizza (hello fatty foods!) and after I took my 5ML dose -- I  ate a peanut bar.  The remainder of the taste isn't in my mouth anymore.  Now I just wait and see.  At least I got the first dose out of the way, but that doesn't mean I'm not still scared. 

The Under Our Skin Viewing

Our viewing was amazing.

First in the middle of April, I was at a support group meeting.  Now I have NEVER been to one in the entire five years I have been diagnosed.  However, my friend Pete runs one and I decided to go to support him.  While we were there, we talked about Advocacy for May.  I mentioned that I had the community rights to show the film in public and we moved forward with our plans to host a screening.  A close friend of Pete's and advisor helped us set up a room to hold the viewing at NC State.

We worked together all month long to get set up for the screening.   We arrived to the building and were worried about the door to the classroom being locked.  Then --- it happened. The door to the building was locked.  We joked about how many Lymies does it take to get in the building.  I started looking for the advisor's (and campus security) phone number while Pete went around the building to find an open door.  He found one!  The door to the classroom was still open!  Yah!

We set up our tables.  One as soon as people walked in the door of the class for a sign in sheet and raffle tickets.  Then, another full of raffle prizes donated by various people and businesses.  The advisor sent really cool cookies with Lime Green frosting.  Yes, we were naughty and ate them! In fact, a lot of people were naughty and ate them.  My friend Beth ate three!

Once we felt we had a comfortable number and there would only be a few stragglers, we introduced ourselves briefly and began the documentary.  Now this documentary gives me several emotions.  My emotions ran the gambit last night.   I once had to get up in the middle of the documentary to stand out in the hallway and let them loose.

We had a total of between 40 and 45 people.  Some had Lyme, some didn't.  Some were family members of friends with Lyme that were unable to attend because of their health. They were their to support their family.  That is just so awesome.  I met four friends for the first time that I've never been able to meet in person bringing my Lyme friends in person total up to like 30!

My hero, my LLMD, was at the screening last night.  It was easy to see that I was his favorite.  My friend took a picture of us hugging and you could see the look on his face --- pure pride beaming.  Words can not express what he's done for me the last five years.  I cry to think about where I was five years ago and even though I've relapsed --- he refuses to let me hit rock bottom.  We're fighting these beasts together.

And together, my Lyme friends and I will continue to create events like last night to raise awareness.  I am really scared to start my new journey with treatment of Babesia.  I rarely cry about my condition, but last night as I was watching Mandy & Dana --- as I saw them in a place I've been --- and I place I'm avoiding going again --- I had to step out and let my emotions overwhelm me for a moment.  I like to present myself with strength and confidence in front of people.  What is really funny is that in high school and college I absolutely HATED standing  up in front of people.  In fact, I hated it so much that for 8 years everytime I had to speak in front of people --- that I literally got sick after the fact (sometimes DURING the fact, which was embarrassing). I think the reason I'm uncomfortable is because I don't know where to look.  Last night, I had so many friends in the audience that it was easy to pick a friendly face and smile because I knew that a smile would be returned. My friend Carey brought a camera to take photos last night and some of the photos were priceless.  Once I get my card reader found, I will some of my photos with you as well.

Here are SOME of my Lyme friends. Yes, we all live in North Carolina.  Yes, we all have Lyme (well except one lady is a wife of a Lyme patient).  Yes, we all look good.  This is one of my favorite pictures from the night.  I hate that my friend Beth wasn't in the photo.  I searched for her, but couldn't locate her.  She was hiding I guess. 



The joy I felt in my heart last night for the new people that I met and for old friends I haven't seen in a while can't be compared to anything.  The sadness in knowing that we shared a common bond of Lyme also can't be compared.  Thank you all for standing by Pete and me as we undertook this event. I am really proud of us.  Many people say, "I want to do ---" and it never gets done.  Pete & I took the bull by the horns and ran.