Saturday, February 28, 2009

The Puzzle, part 1

I know this is way past due but blogging hasn't been terribly high on my priority list lately, I've been busy surviving. Let's just pretend the past two months didn't happen and voila I'm totally on top of things. While these months have been incredibly hard they have yielded unexpected fruit, namely a diagnosis! It only took four years to figure it out and it's still very weird to me. It doesn't seem real, like I'm looking at my life through a haze. When people ask what is wrong with me I'm still inclined to say 'we don't know' out of habit, but what I should say is (drum roll), I have Lyme Disease. Maybe it takes a while for these things to sink in, it seems surreal. Anyway on to the meat of the subject. Lyme Disease is an illness caused by ticks who contain a bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi

The Devil Itself

The bacteria is extremely versatile and can infect just about any system in your body. It manifests itself different in everyone who has it. Some have chronic joint and muscle pain, some neurological problems, others it infects their brain. It's very hard to know for sure what it's doing to me but my guess would be it is in my nervous system as well as my brain. It is a nasty little bugger, but the good news is there are ways to cure it. I will now be receiving massive doses of IV antibiotics four times a week for the next three months. Hopefully we can kill it that fast, if not it will be longer but the success rate is very high so no matter how long it takes I am very excited. If you are interested in more detail please ask me, I would be more than happy to throw out some technical jargon to try and help you further understand.