New CDC Guidelines

The CDC recently changed their guidelines for diagnosing Lyme Disease. You must now have at LEAST 10 out of 12 of the following symptoms:

-you can identify all of the people on the Urgent Care billboard

-when you lose an item (book, shoe, etc.), the first place you look for it is in the fridge (and chances are good that it's there!)

-you attempt to drink your child's watercolor paint water because it looks exactly like one of your homeopathic remedies

-an epsom salt bath means the perfect opportunity for you to catch up on bills, texts, emails, writing your life story, etc.

-you eat more food than a teenage boy and a pregnant woman combined, and still have the physique of an Olsen twin

-you can call your doctor's office and leave the message, "Hey it's me; Call me back," and they do

-you take more pills a day than all of your grandparents combined

-you spend so much time in your bed that you've created a dent shaped exactly like you

-you get really excited when you break your personal record for giving the most vials of blood at your doctor's office

-you have a stockpile of household items next to your bed that you use daily for self-massage (and you NEVER leave your house without your wooden egg or miniature rolling pin!)

-you have way more experience doling out your medicine than a pharmacist

-your weight and your body temperature are easy to remember, because they are the same

Caught in a Rip Current

Having Lyme Disease is like being caught in a rip current. I can see the shore; I can see my friends and family standing there waving to me, but no matter how hard I try to swim back to them, back to my old life, I'm just treading water.

In order to make it out of this rip current--my Lyme Disease--I have to be willing to swim parallel to the shore, not toward it. It doesn't seem logical. I can see my old life right in front of my eyes, and I want to swim as fast as I can straight toward it, but it is like a mirage. The more I grasp for a life I cannot have right now, the more it disappears. Peace and acceptance are hard to come by, but I am slowly learning their ways.

In order to have the things I want most in my life right now, I have to give them up. Not forever, but for now, because my body simply needs rest.

It seems odd that being static can make you grow the most. Like a person thrashing to get out of a rip current, my instinct is to run straight back to where I was before I got sick. I want to be the person I used to be, and do the things I used to do again. But I can't. I can't run toward that, because I am on a different journey. Physically, I am weaker than I have ever been in my life. Mentally, I am stronger than I've ever been in my life. So, I'm learning to stop thrashing and step out of the way so my body can do its job.

A Girl Without A Pony Is Like A Tick Without Borrelia Burgdorferi

All of my life, horses have been magical to me. At a very young age, I started begging my parents for a pony. Sadly, sticking a pony in our tiny backyard (within the city limits) wasn't doable, or legal for that matter, but my poor broken heart couldn't fathom why my parents would choose to torture me by denying me my heart's desire of having my very own pony.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I finally got my foot in the door (er, gate) to the world of horses. I convinced my husband to let me take (very expensive!) riding lessons. Once a week, for one hour, my lifelong dream of being atop a real live horse came true!

I quickly noticed that something peculiar would happen when I was on the horses. When I was riding, if I was sick, my symptoms would disappear. But the second I would step back onto the ground, whatever symptoms I had would come back. For instance, if I had a headache it would be gone while I rode, but when my boots swung out of the stirrups and I landed back on the ground, my headache would be instantly back.

This happened to me many times. Be it a cold, asthma, anxiety, you name it and it would disappear. These magical ponies that I dreamed of all of my life were performing their own magic trick for me. In return, I did the one thing I could think of to thank them: I paid them back in peppermints.

On a cold and rainy winter day, my lifelong dream came true, and I got my very own dream pony. I loved my dear Shiloh for 5 wonderful years before she passed away at the ripe old age of 30. She carried me through so many things: my spouse in law school, the birth of my second child (okay, so she didn't actually CARRY me through that!), depression, anxiety, etc. Just like the horses I took riding lessons on, my problems melted away atop my swaybacked Appaloosa.

I have been well enough to ride horses only a handful of times since I got sick, but something about the magic of the horses shifted since I developed Lyme Disease. They were no longer able to carry me away from my pain. My joints still ached. My anxiety was still there. I was still depressed about being chronically ill. After years of horses taking my pain away from me, what was going on?

With this illness, I have had to tap into incredible amounts of strength deep inside of me to make it through my pain. Maybe the horses began to sense a change in me. Inside, I am so much stronger now than I ever was when I was "healthy." I am a much more positive person. I try not to take life for granted so much. I think the horses understood that I was finally ready to carry myself, ironically at a time when I could barely walk on my own two feet.

The reality of my illness is that I am not able to take care of another horse anytime soon. But the dream of one day owning my own horse once again carries me through my hard times. I KNOW I will be well again. I will fight with every last ounce I have to accomplish this dream. And this time, I will be stronger. I will not need my horse to carry me away from anything. We will ride off on our new adventure, girl and horse.

I am fighting for you, Dream Pony!

PS I will still be putting "a pony" on my Christmas list this year, just in case...

Lyme Disease or Pajama Party? You Be the Judge!

Lyme Disease may not be a walk in the park. However, if you look very carefully (and some days you have to look VERY carefully), there are actually a few perks of having my body invaded by a boatload of bizarre creatures known as spirochetes. For example, due to the fact that I have crippling memory loss, you can tell me your good news over and over again, and I will get just as excited for you each time you tell me! My friends love testing this theory on me. Go ahead, try it!

Another perk of Lyme Disease for me is that, since I'm on a dreadfully restricted diet (gluten free and dairy free), I get to eat like a teenage boy in order to keep my weight up. I have breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, second lunch, you get the picture! Hands down, second breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. And thanks to Lyme Disease, I still get to keep my svelte figure!

One more bonus of Borrelia Burgdorferi (aka my old pal, Lyme Disease) is that since I got sick, I got a written prescription to have a pajama party all day long, every day! I have quite the extensive collection of pj's. I have pajamas with Santas, apples, gnomes, Christmas trees, pumpkins, etc. Some people take great pride in picking out their outfit for the day (yawn!); I get to choose from a pile of fun and happy pajamas. Who says Lyme Disease doesn't have it's benefits?!

The Carousel Disease

If you've ever spent any time around someone with Lyme Disease, you are probably pretty baffled. How is it that one minute they can be too sick to walk, and the next minute they are running around like a wild person, full of energy? One minute, they need to be carried up the steps, and the next minute, they are bouncing down the steps to answer the door. One day they can make a four-course meal, and the next day, they walk away from the stove until the smoke alarm goes off, reminding them that they were actually in the middle of making dinner!

Migrating symptoms are a hallmark of Lyme Disease. Sometimes I refer to it as the Carousel Disease, because my days are constantly up and down. No one has been able to explain to me what causes these ever-changing symptoms, but it is one of the most frustrating parts of the disease. People who don't understand Lyme Disease assume you are faking your illness. It's very hard for people to understand why I have days when I can actually ride a horse, and other days when I have to be carried from my bed to the bathroom.

You may look at me, and I may not look the slightest bit sick to you. But inside my body, there is so much going on that you can't see! So for those of you who are ready, hop on the carousel of Lyme Disease for a spin with me!

Imagine someone has strapped lead weights on your legs. Now your legs are heavy, achy, and hard to move. Getting around is quite a chore, but you can do it!

Now, imagine your brain is filled with cotton (hard to picture, but bear with me!). The simplest of decisions are now a major struggle for you, and you can't remember what you were saying or thinking. You can no longer answer a simple question like "should I have a snack?" You can no longer figure out simple math questions like 12-5. You constantly forget to eat your snack, and drink the tea you just made. You forget simple words. You haven't the faintest idea of what you did this morning, let alone yesterday!

Now picture someone taking a drill and boring into your hips, causing a deep, slow ache. It hurts when you walk, it hurts when you sit, it hurts when you lay down. Your fingers feel like someone is stabbing them with needles. Your knees feel like someone is banging on them with a hammer.

Mentally, you are very agitated, like someone is scraping their fingers down a chalkboard close to your ears. You head is throbbing, you are tense, and you feel as though you are ready to blow at any moment!

And just as suddenly as you hopped on the carousel, you hop off. The ride is over. Your head stopped throbbing. Your hips are only a dull ache now, not nearly as intense. You can walk easier now, but all that riding on the carousel has left you a little dizzy. Whoever was scraping their fingers down the chalkboard has stopped, and now you're only mildly agitated. You don't feel like there are lead weights on your legs anymore, but you are left with a flu-like ache in your body. You suddenly remember a million things that you were supposed to do. Like a kitten running through the house, you dart around trying to make up for lost time, all the while wondering when the carousel ride is going to start back up. It might be soon. It might not be until tomorrow. You don't know what the ride will be like next time or how long it will last. But for now, you are happy that your quarter ran out, and the ride is over.