Another Lyme success story

From: NE USA
Registered: Sep 2001
posted 27 November 2002 15:25 from lymenet

I think Lou is right-- people get better, and go about their lives, so that we don't often hear that side of things. I'm still around, at least from time to time, because I remember how much the encouragement meant to me when I got here.

Here's mY story. It is still unfinished, but so far, it is one of the good ones:
I trace my Lyme back to 1987, but during the years I was diagnosed with mono, suspected to have MS, depression, finally diagnosed with CFS. But I kept getting sicker.

A year ago I was so sick I was frightened. I had been going downhill for years, and it was accelerating to the point I had become incapable of living by myself, was almost entirely housebound, and increasingly bedbound.

Sometimes it was all I could do to take care of my immediate physical needs. I had severe tendonitis, ibs, was unable to be around more than 2 people at a time, watch tv, or read any but simple things because I could not concentrate. I lived in fog and pain.

I finally was able to convince a pcp to send my sample to Igenex-- some of you long-timers might remember me from then, because it was you-all who guided me through this, and the next steps of finding an LLMD.
I started treatment almost exactly eight months ago. I have been getting steadily better since, though of course with all the ups and downs that goes with recovery from Lyme (and, it turned out, a couple other TBDs).

Here is where I am now:

Monday evening, I participated in a communtity event with over 100 people in a school gym, the culminaton of 4 weeks of small group meetings. I talked lucidly with dozens of people, (cheated and ate a cookie), and volunteered to work on a task force to create a community recreation program and other community-building projects. For the first time in many years, I feel I can make a commitment to doing something like that, and be able to follow through.

The next morning, I babysat my granddaughter while my daughter went to an emergency dentist appt and did Thanksgiving shopping. I crashed in the afternoon, but was still able to stay up to watch Frasier on tv, and then keep watch so that the delinquents next door didn't throw things at our house to wake up my toddler granddaughter (sadly, a routine occurance).

Today I did laundry, folded clothes, played with my granddaughter, gave my son-in-law a hard time, wrote down all my old Thanksgiving recipes for my daughter. Now I am having my regular afternoon rest (still a must).

Tomorrow I will help my daughter prepare a quiet, traditional dinner with just my family, and then get lots of rest, because Friday I have a long drive to see my LLMD.

This all amazes me. It is far more than I ever expected. And it keeps improving. I am nearly pain free except when I herx. The herxes are much lighter-- I have not had one in weeks that put me in bed for the day, though I felt ucky.

I read the paper clear through daily, subscribe to several magazines again, which I read a bit at a time, because I am still in the process of rebuilding my cognitive abilities. I manage the VtLyme list, maintain two websites, and am beginning to write essays, fiction, and poetry in dribs and drabbles again.

I go for walks, which are getting longer, occasionally break into a run just for the heck of it. I chase my granddaughter through the house playing. Once a week I do "light" shopping. My family and I go on regular outings, and though I do get tired, I no longer have to spend two days in bed recovering.

No, I'm not completely well, yet. And I still have an occasional out-and-out sucky day. But I am living my life again, making friends, reaching out into the world. I am no longer isolated inside my illness.

I don't know if I'll be able to go back to work, but it is something I dream about, and am beginning to think it might be possible, if only part-time. We'll see.

In ten days I'll be 60 years old. What joy I feel that though I've lost my middle years, I have a healthy and active old age to look forward to. And next June my sixth grandchild will be born. And I am beginning to be able to be the kind of grandmother I always wanted to be.

I also still need you all. This is a huge transition in my life: from invalid to reclaiming health, and I need to share that with others who are also going through this process, with all the hopes and uncertainties it entails. I still experience both of those feelings, and everything in between. But, more and more, simple gratitude that after all those years, and all that loss, I am recovering, and have a life again.

Love and hugs to all of you,
and especially-- thanks!

Dayle Ann