New Friend

This week’s treatment of antibiotics was much different than last weeks.  It was not near as harsh because I was not on oral antibiotics in addition to the intravenous antibiotics.  With that being said, my LLMD did increase the IV antibiotics to Merrem and Cirpro in the morning, and then AGAIN at night too, so I was infusing two antibiotics twice a day.  Infusing twice a day has not been near as intense on my digestive system as the previous weak; granted there have been times where I have been nauseous but no vomiting. 

In addition, I have noticed that I have lost my sense of taste!  I went to the dentist on Monday and apparently my back taste buds are severely inflamed and that is a direct side effect of my antibiotics.   Food just doesn’t seem appetizing to me at all; I have had to mentally force feed myself.  My go to comfort foods has been fruit and rice cakes with peanut butter and jelly. 

Also, this week my headaches, fatigue, irritability, depression, isolated nerve and muscular pain have increased.  I had to withdrawal from one of my online summer courses that I was taking to try to keep myself busy and I am still recovering from the immense guilty and feelings of failure that I feel.  I have also just felt sensitive in general even when people go to give me ahead it just doesn’t feel good sometimes.  Often times when I am alone I find myself in crying spats just getting out my frustration towards this disease, which motivates to want to get better and to succeed.

*The best part of my entire week was meeting a kid a year younger than me, who goes to Virginia Tech and has Lyme disease and a coinfection.  He happens to also see the same doctor as me!  He is not near as far into the process as me nor has he been sick as many years, but I have never been able to talk to someone my age in person that knew exactly what I was going through.  We talked for two and a half hours at Starbucks from topics ranging from different symptoms, antibiotic protocols, management of symptoms, relationships, how to describe what we have to our friends, our families, our futures, and most importantly HOPE!  I left feeling hopeful for the first time in awhile because I was not alone; I knew I wasn’t alone before from reading online articles and talking to people on the phone and even knowing adults, but it is truly different when the person is in your age group!  The crazy thing about his family is his Dad has Lyme with a coinfection and his sister as well!  His Dad is very sick and just got a port inserted two days ago to begin IV therapy, so I am sure I will be hearing from this new Lyme friend!

Another week completed and now next week I have 3 days of CoArtem, which attacks the coinfection Babesia.  I am not even taking other antibiotics with CoArtem because it is so powerful!  The second week of my protocols are usually hard mentally for me and then the third week of my protocols are usually hard physically from what I have been able to observe, therefore this shall be interesting!  Last time I took this antibiotic I felt out of this world; I felt as if I were from another planet and couldn’t communicate with anyone.  I was so worn down and fatigued; everything hurt too.  I was not even on as intense of a protocol as I was given this time, but being back at home instead of at school and having minimal stress will be helpful! 

Anyways I will keep everyone updated on what the future holds for me, until then I hope everyone is spraying with Off to protect themselves against ticks and still checking for ticks after being outside!

“You have to fight through some bad days to earn the best days of your life.”