Once again I do apologize for the large time gap in my
posts, but I grew so busy with the end of the school year that I wasn’t able to
focus on my blog and that isn’t fair to my readers.
Anyways, I will finish where I left of and then give you an
update on my life! After I arrived
in Baltimore after having sat on the plane ride WITH MY MOTHER thinking that I
possibly had gonorrhea; my mom had a voicemail on her phone from my LLMD that
my blood culture had been contaminated possibly. I was extremely aggravated at this point because the next
blood culture would take 24hrs, then 48 hrs, and then 72 hrs for further
results. Regardless of what my
blood culture said it was decided I needed to get the PICC out so I had decided
I would get the PICC out the next day at the clinic and I would just do the
cultures there since we know and trust the staff.
Pre-PICC pull
My PICC!
Had to post this!
Could you imagine what it was like waiting for those
results? I had to wait around on
my Spring Break thinking that I may have gonorrhea. The worst part was my mom thought I had gonorrhea
too!!! She would ask me
repetitively and she would bring it up when we wouldn’t even be talking about
how I was feeling. We could be talking
about the weather and then all of the sudden she would be like “I promise I
won’t get mad if you slept with a random stranger, but did you?” Then to top it off the blood culture
took forever to come back because it was hard to determine the specific species
and it took about 5 days! Luckily
they started me on Omnicef and Cipro because it was determined that the
bacteria was gram negative pretty early on but they still wanted to verify the
species. The bacteria was
pseudomonas putida, which is an opportunistic infection and because I had the PICC
line in my arm I was considered an opportunity I guess. I did two weeks of oral antibiotics and
those two weeks were actually kind of rough surprisingly because I hadn’t taken
those orals in awhile. My stomach
wasn’t used to it and because I had an active infection in my blood, I
definitely felt the die off of the bacteria.
Shit happens
and life goes on, that is what I have learned. Mentally that was a set back for me, I have a tendency to
think that bad things only happen to me.
I am beginning to realize that they happen to everyone, but usually you
only hear everyone else’s highlights not their lows. I did finish the semester with a 3.63, qualifying me to make
the University’s deans list, which was a very satisfying feeling because I do
work very hard for my grades. I
also presented two of my Psychology research pieces at conferences, one being
the Virginia Psychology Association in Norfolk.
Me presenting my poster at the Virginia Psychology Association
When I look back I feel like I am accomplishing a lot, but
when I live day to day I don’t feel fulfilled. I feel like I am missing something and I don’t feel “better”. I guess I keep trying all of these
supplements or more naturalistic approaches and I haven’t seen the results I
want, which also contributes to my feelings of dissatisfaction. I have begun dry needling for my neck
pain/back pain/headaches; I have seen some relief sometimes and I guess that is
better than no relief. I also
tried protandim, which is a supplement but I didn’t see any relief with
that. I have been reading a lot
about the cannabis oil and I am tempted to ask my LLMD about it at my
appointment next week. I think
they are studying its effects on killing Lyme and helping with symptom
relief. Also, I discovered that I
have biotoxins, whatever that means.
I went to a biotoxin illness doctor last week and I failed the vision
test so badly; I got blood work done to try and target which systems the
biotoxins are effecting like my cardiovascular system, my endocrine system,
etc. The doctor seemed promising.
Another weird reality in my life is that many of my friends
have graduated this past year and I still have another semester, which I am
fine with; it is just weird and causing me to reflect. I have recently met another student at
my University, who also suffers from Lyme disease and many coinfections; she is
a spitting image of who I was a year ago.
She was over last night and when I opened the door I felt like I was
opening the door to a shadow that was me a year ago as creepy as that sounds. She has delayed speech, lost so much
weight, one side of her face droops a little bit, she goes on tangents, and she
thinks just like me! She is at a
time in her life where she can’t be happy for other people because she is
struggling so much herself; she is extremely bitter. I could relate, a normal person would think we were crazy;
but I understood every single thing she said. It made me realize how far I have come in a year. I may have a ways to go, but it is nice to realize where I was at one time.
Tomorrow is my birthday and I absolutely hate birthdays
because for some reason I think of it as celebrating one more year I skated
past death. I think of me
surviving one more year of the grim reaper reaching his hand out, trying to
grab me, and me somehow surviving yet another year but I don’t know how I did
it this year. When I reflect back,
I literally had stopped taking my medication for 5 days last July, I was skin
and bones in September, I had sepsis in January, I had another bacteria in my
blood in March, and yet I am still here!
HOW is all I want to know?!
I guess that is the definition of resilience. There were days I swear I saw death especially last July,
but I did it. One more year
down. 22 tomorrow.
“I want to meet myself from someone else’s point of view.”
