This weekend has been the roughest yet since starting on antibiotics January 21st.  I have been on Doxycycline since January 21st, started pulse therapy with Flagyl February 19th, had 4 weeks of cefotaxime injections, and have now been on Rocephin via IV for 2 weeks....all antibiotics.  Last Monday I started getting regular, daily headaches.  I had headaches a couple weeks ago and it was thought by Dr. Kolodjski to be the Flagyl causing them.  Since starting the Flagyl, every weekend the dose goes by by 250 mg and its only taken Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Chris and I are thinking that my rough weekend might be the result of the Flagyl.  I don't know, but I do know that its been the roughest.  A good word to describe myself is "mush".  The body feels like mush, the brain feels like mush and I basically feel useless as mush.  If I'm not lying down than I feel miserable.  We have questioned whether this is the infamous herxheimer reaction we've been told about but there hasn't been a fever.  On the contrary, I tend to go down in temp rather than go up.  The headaches are there but not the chills.  It would be nice if we knew for sure because if its a herx than we are celebrating.  I know that sounds like an oxy moran (I feel like one sometimes) but the horrible reaction that is supposed to cause flu like symptoms affirms that the medicine is working and bacteria is dying.  Dead bacteria would be very good news.  I have never wanted something to die so badly as I do this bacteria and all its friends.
So, I have succumbed to sleeping or surfing around on facebook and tending to my farm.  Pretty sad actually.  Not able to do a whole lot else, particularly with one arm and one hand.  I look forward to Monday through Thursday because I don't take the Flagyl...than I dread Friday.  Next weekend will be the last increase in Flagyl.  I will be on 750 mg Friday, 750 mg Saturday and 750 mg Sunday.  I don't anticipate I will be much use next weekend either.
I was reading one of the books I picked up at the library called "Beating Lyme".  As I have combed through it I keep thinking, "I wish everyone would read this".  Part of me says, "Why read, I already know quite a bit about Lyme" but I know I can alway pick up something else.  Tonight, I picked it up and began reading to kill time and I am filled with such a mix of emotions.  On one hand I am encouraged as I read this persons battle because its me almost to a "T".  Sometimes I wonder if I really have Lyme because mine hasn't progressed as fast and severely as many others. But, when I read something on Lyme I am quickly affirmed that Lyme is what I am dealing with and I become thankful that I haven't had it as bad as others.  Thank you God for sparing my family and allowing to me to be able to what I have been able to do.  On the other hand, I am filled with anger as I continue to read about the politics behind this disease and as a result, millions of people that are suffering from Lyme and don't know it.  It is difficult for people to understand that there is a disease in America that is being ignored because professionals have personal agendas.  Its made me want to make it my life mission to inform and educate all hospitals and doctors.  This quickly turns into an over whelming feeling because I no more have energy today to tie my shoes much less to fight this battle outside my own house.  Over whelming feelings turn into fear as again I read that the disease can be transmitted from mother to baby in the womb.  Than I started reading about how the rash isn't always a bulls eye.....bulls eye...and my memory quickly goes back to May of last year when Madilyn had 2-3 rashes on her chest.  We weren't sure what they were.  Becka fought two cases of staph infection when she was 3 and we were told she was at a high risk of staph infections anytime there was a break in the skin.  So, when Madilyn's showed up we kept an eye on it and when it multiplied we called the doctor who then sent us to the ER where a doctor laughed at me for bringing her in (I have never wanted to hurt another human being so much).  I think back now and both Madilyn's and Rebecka's rashes were bulls eye rashes.  Since this diagnosis we have been thinking back to when I possibly could have contracted Lyme and I remembered in college when I had a rash across my body....I thought they looked like hives.  This could have been the beginning of Lyme.  If this is the case I have had Lyme for almost 15 years. This blows me away.
Its easy for all these emotions to go hay wire and because my mind is mush it is very difficult to work through them.  I will pray and trust God about my girls.  This is easier said than done and is a daily surrender.  He knows everything and is in control of everything and is the only One I can trust when it comes to this disease or anything else.  This disease is testing everything in me.  It tests me physically. It tests me emotionally (more and more) and it tests me spiritually even more.