Sunday, October 20, 2013

Babesia attack!


Sorry it has been so long since my last blog post!  I do miss blogging, so I am going to try to give you the most thorough update on my life now that school is back in full swing, but it may be very brief.

Since September 20th, 2013 I have been on an intense protocol of:
-IV Cipro in the morning for the first two weeks M,W,F
-IV Azithromycin at night for the first two weeks M, W, F
-Mepron 2 tsp twice daily for the first two weeks M, W, F
- Septra DS 1 tab twice daily for the first two weeks M, W, F
- Artemisinin 800mg twice daily for the first two weeks M, W, F
- Lactoferrin and Xylitol first 8 days of antibiotics
-Flagyl twice daily on the second week just Thursday and Friday
-BUT then CoArten twice daily on M,T, W of my third week

And I am finally on my 10 days off.  I am exhausted mentally, physically, emotionally.  Being at school has taken a tremendous toll on me and my parents in addition to others have suggested I take next semester off because it is almost unrealistic that I am at school from time to time.   Luckily I do not have to make a decision right now.

I went home the last weekend in September to go to the cardiologist, where I found out I have mitral valve prolapse.  This could be where I get increased anxiety, I met Mandy Hughes from the documentary Under Our Skin the last weekend of September and she looked amazing.  She is no longer on antibiotics and she is currently a nurse at Hopkins, meeting her may have saved my life.  She was able to point out all of my current symptoms just from looking at me, she could tell I twitch and was fidgety, my balance is off, my central nervous system was going crazy, my speech was delayed, and the list is endless.  She restored my hope.  I cannot reiterate enough that she looked amazing; here is a picture of us below:

Inspiration 

The hope only lasted so long when I began to truly regress cognitively, be in more physical pain, and barely be able to keep food down.  I had to fight with all of my will power for two hours after I took my antibiotics to ensure that my pills would be effective.  I remember calling a good friend of mine Wednesday night the second week of that protocol at 12:30ish sobbing asking her if it was okay if I didn’t take my oral antibiotics because I was going to throw up from the IV.  She comforted me until I began puking my guts out; I saw her that weekend at a PAL event Partners Against Lyme at George Mason University and she commented, as did everyone else on how much weight I had lost. 

Beautiful Lyme Ladies

My doctor was the keynote speaker at the event, so after I asked him to feel my neck because my ear was killing me and I was going to go to Urgent Care on Monday if he didn’t think it was too much of a concern, but he agreed to and as he pressed on my neck and hit this one spot he told me the nerves of my carotid artery were inflamed causing the ear pain.  I have had this ear infection like pain since June!!! It drives me crazy and as you can imagine cold, rainy weather doesn’t make it much better.  The good news is he saved me a trip to the doctors that I didn’t need and I met amazing people at this forum that were very similar to me. 

The protocol was vicious in general but especially with CoArtem; I did not react well to that by any means.  I had very vivid dreams, heightened anxiety, a hot burning skin rash and so much more.  As a whole I still have a lot of neurological problems such as dyslexic like issues, severe memory impairment, hand malfunctions, muscle aches, nerve pain in my back and head, headaches, chest pain, air hunger, nausea, chest pain, anxiety, just to name a few but I do know that it does get worse significantly worse before you get better. 

I went back to the doctors on Friday and I am sticking with the same protocol because my Babesia symptoms aren’t going away which is concerning.  The only difference was that on the same days I take Flagyl I am going to add Diflucan; oh the joys!  My body was treating 50 degree weather as if it were 25 degree weather; I can’t regulate my body temperature at all and my blood pressure has been super low at the doctor’s office it was 82/47.  I did IV magnesium while in the office and am going to start juicing or shall I say making as many green smoothies as I can to bring myself back to life!  In addition, I have been doing IV iron, which I think was the only way I made it through this protocol because it restored some of my fatigue; I hope I can do more of it. 

Now for the good things that have happened in my life, I was accepted for field placement for the spring of 2014.  It was a competitive process that at first I had to submit an essay then I had be chosen for an interview then I had to be accepted to the actual field placement after everyone has been interviewed and considered.  I also went to the tattoo shop that I want to have my tattoo done at and I got it stenciled on, it gave me something to look forward to.  I took a ton of photos!  Once again I am sorry for not writing in forever!

“Every test in our life makes us bitter or better, every problem comes to break us or make us.  The chose is ours whether we become victim or victor.”  

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