Creating a "healthy" routine

Since the start of the New Year, my primary focus has been my self and my health.  In the chaos of trying to graduate and worry about others, I have forgotten what it is like to develop a healthy, “normal” routine.  I put normal in quotations because my normal isn’t normal for a 22-year-old college graduate.  I have come to realize there are far more important things than trying to compete with my peers.  If I put in the time now, there is hope for a brighter and better future for myself and I recognize that.

So what does this health look like?  Well first of all I started following the autoimmune paleo protocol, which means I eat all organic, all grass fed meat, no nightshades, no beans, no legumes, minimal fruit, and not much sugar at all.  My hope is that I can repair my gut through this diet and get my yeast situation under control.  Due to the years of antibiotics my gut has lost a lot of the healthy bacteria and unfortunately has grown a lot of the unhealthy bacteria, even while taking probiotics! 

What truly motivated me to take this plunge was the amount of sugar I was consuming towards the end of 2014!  I was consuming massive amounts of chocolate a day.  I felt that chocolate was a reward for everything I did and that I deserved a piece of this or that, or a jar of frosting, or a box of brownie mix.  It was absurd and out of control.  The only way I was going to be able to grasp control of the situation was through a detox that was going to nourish my body fully, which is what this lifestyle does.  I also needed to make sure that when I began this new lifestyle change I would be supporting other areas of my life, therefore preventing emotional eating or loss of appetite or whatever it may be.  Additionally, a driving force to start on January 7^th was my sister was starting advocore and I wanted to start something on the same day so we could motivate each other if we felt tempted.  I must admit I have not felt the slightest tempted while eating AIP friendly foods. 

Granted I am not a food blogger but I thought I would include some of the meals I have been preparing for myself so enjoy!

Lamb stirfry with coconut oil

Goat burgers with oregano, garlic, onion, and salt

Bone Broth with veggies :)

Salmon with avocado on a bed of lettuce

Furthermore, I have begun exercising again and that is when I feel alive.  I used to be a competitive swimmer, swimming almost every day of the week so when I go weeks on end without any source of physical activity I begin to lose my mind!  The past two weeks I have been attending yoga and barre classes which have challenging me both physically and mentally.  I think it is important, no matter what stage of what illness you are fighting, to move your body.  If you are on the ground, crawl.  That is how much I believe in the power of movement.  Day by day you will see the power it has on your spirit.

Also I am only working part time right now while I get all of my ducks in a row.  One positive to this job is it’s a job in my field.  So everyday that I do work, I am constantly learning and I think these kids are going to teach me more about life than I could ever learn in a classroom.  While I am disappointed in myself that I don’t have a full time job right now, I am happy with where I am.  I am acknowledging how far I have come and how far I have to go.  I am applying to graduate schools right now too.  I have submitted one application, thus far for a Master’s in Social Work and am working on my second application as we speak.

In addition, I am increasing my probiotics and beginning to take a few different ones.   I am going to start taking Prescript Assist (a probiotic) in addition to an enzyme to help bind the probiotic to my gut.  I am going to do a cleanse because that is still an issue even while eating paleo!  The name of the supplement that I am going to take for the candida is called Candistatin by PhysioLogics; I currently have a friend taking the supplement recommended to her by her naturopath doctor.  She is seeing results so I thought why not?  As far as health goes, I just started an antibiotic protocol on Monday because my LLMD still believes that my coinfections and Chlamydia pneumoniae are wrecking havoc on my body.  I had a fever two weeks ago and had to go to the hospital where the doctors said it was just a virus, which I agree with; I just fear my immune system crashing again after this past fall.  The antibiotics are already causing me to herx, nothing too bad yet, granted it has only been 4 days; but I do feel increased joint pain, chest pain, and it hurts to breathe.  So I am thinking it is my babesia causing me the most problems right now or my Chlamydia pneumoniae.

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it.  The hard is what makes it great.”

Challenge Accepted

I did it, challenge accepted.  I graduated college with an undergraduate degree in Psychology with a minor in Substance abuse prevention.  I can’t believe I did it even if it did take 4 and a half years.  I have accepted that everyone goes at their own pace and that is the beauty of life.  I honestly don’t know where to begin with how this past semester was for me, I guess I’ll start where I left off!

My family at graduation.

On the way to graduation.

My first day of kindergarten. It is crazy to think how much has occured in those 17 years. I don't think I would change any of it because the combination of experiences compiled togeter have created the strong woman I am today.

The gallbladder surgery went surprisingly well when I look back and think about it.  I didn’t have to spend the night in the hospital or anything.  The only problem I did have was waking up from the anesthesia, I was extremely nauseous and wanted to see my Mom but they said I had to walk before I was allowed to see her.  Eventually I stopped gagging from the anesthesia and moved from the hospital bed into a chair so that I could see my Mom.  When the doctor came in after the surgery to check on me he said my gallbladder definitely needed to come out.  It was very inflammed, that was reassuring to hear that I made the right decision in having it out.  The nurses also told me to use heat for my shoulders and to start walking as soon as possible to remove the air from my stomache.  Also, I started school ten days later so I really did not have much time to “relax”.  I needed to get up and get going.  My parents had my Aunt and Uncle’s wedding to attend the next day so my best friend came to babysit me since I was unable to be left alone.  Let’s just say I was grateful to have her stay with me!  She had to do everything for me… by everything I mean, walk me to the bathroom, cook me food, give me pain meds, and added bonus was she kept me laughing the whole time she was with me!  I must admit I am blessed when it comes to my family and friends.

When I went back to school, I was taking 16 credits including an internship at ASAP also known as Alcohol Safety Action Program.  I had to complete 150 hours during the semester.  In addition to the internship, I was taking biology, which for those that know me well know that I am not good at science, I was a teacher’s assistant for an undergraduate cognitive psychology course, and I continued my positive psychology research.  Needless to say I don’t think I know what it is like to not be busy.  I think I thrive on being busy and enjoy the high I get from always running around as if my head was chopped off.  When I sit still my head has time to actually process how my body feels and I lose it.  This is the reason I hate movies, hate watching TV, and any activity where I have to sit still or can’t multitask.

The semester started out great!  I was super busy, but I had a great roommate who helped with my puppy and cooked dinner for me most nights.  I loved living with just one other person vs. three other people; it was easier to communicate with one person and the townhouse was quiet which was great for my hyper sound sensitivity.  I had quite a few ear infections in September but I kept chugging along like I always do because I am a warrior.  The entire month of September I had been planning a substance abuse recovery panel with 4 panelists as a passport event for the freshman to attend as part of their health class.  I was the moderator for the event and it went very smoothly!  There was a high attendance rate of over 125 students and I think that the event increased students awareness for substance abuse in college. 

That night after I had finished the event successfully, my body gave out on me.  I spiked a very high fever and the next day went to the hospital.  They conducted 3 spinal taps because they missed the first two times and had to send me to radiology after the failed attempts.  The doctors said there was nothing wrong and everything was normal even with extremely elevated sed rate and WBC.  They discharged me with fever of unknown origin.  I even had a fever on the day of discharge, which seems kind of funny to me as to why they would discharge me if I still had a low grade fever of 99.8 at 1pm in the afternoon. 

Then for the next 3 weeks I suffered from fevers almost daily if I did not take Tylenol in addition to extreme body pain.  It hurt for someone to touch my body especially my back and legs.  I followed up with my primary care doctor in Harrisonburg and he said you have had every test done in the book what do you want me to do?  The nurse was laughing at me because I was crying in the office from the amount of pain I was in.  The doctor ended up doing a strep test because he said that was the only test I hadn’t had done yet and of course it was negative, leaving me more hopeless then ever.

That weekend I was going to visit my sister at Notre Dame to attend my first Notre Dame football game and to be her Naval ball date. Excited does not even justify the way I felt, leading up to this weekend.  I talked nonstop about going to Notre Dame, seeing my sister, and attending a football game.  I was even missing a day of school in order to have a tour of the field since my sister works for NBC.  Luckily my Dad, my Aunt, my Uncle and I all made it to South Bend, Indiana in time for the private tour on Friday given by my sister.  It was awesome!  Then I went to the Naval ball that night with my sister, but I felt my body beginning to fail on me.  I was fading in and out all evening and my sister could tell.  She offered to leave the entire night, but I didn’t want to.  The next day was the football game against UNC and it was much colder than I expected so we all headed to the mall to get sweatshirts so we wouldn’t freeze when we tailgated.  I was more achey than I had ever felt and my legs were failing me miserably.  I asked my Dad to feel my forehead as I leaned up against him for support.  I didn’t really need my Dad to verify that I was burning up, I knew it before he confirmed it.  He felt my forehead, grabbed my arms to hold me up, then looked into my eyes, and said you are not well, we need to get you to the hospital.  To this day I don’t know what would have happened if I had gone to the football game.  I sobbed the whole way to the hospital, I wanted to go to that football game more than anything and of course I was sick.  Once I had been seen by the doctor he ordered a chest X-ray, said it was clear, and wanted to run more tests but my Dad and I called my Lyme doctor’s office to talk to the doctor on call.  I did not want to be hospitalized in small town Indiana in a hospital that did not know much about lyme disease not to mention I was far from my Mom.  Luckily the Physician assistant on call called back very quickly and talked to the doctor who was seeing me.  The doctor was very receptive to everything she was saying; she thought it was a herx or an infection.  The doctor wrote me valium, Tylenol with hydrocodone, and ibuprofen 800mg; he wrote me a schedule for taking all of the medications based on the Physician assistant’s guidance. 

Just showing off on the Notre Dame football field!

My sister and I at the Naval Ball

I somehow survived another night in Indiana and a 10 hour drive back to Harrisonburg, Virginia because I thought I was going to magically get better and go back to class on Monday.  Boy, was I wrong.  My Mom had drive down and get me because I literally lost the ability to walk.  My roommate had to carry me down to the car from my room because my Mom wanted to take me to the hospital at home in Baltimore, Maryland.  I think that was the longest 3 hour drive of my life.  I felt as though I fading in and out of consciousness waiting to arrive at the hospital and I somehow made it to Greater Baltimore Medical Center.  On Monday, October 13^th 2014 I was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit  for being septic secondary to pneumonia.  In the ICU I was not given any pain meds, anxiety meds, or sleep meds due to my low blood pressure (69/49) and high fever.  Every time I would scream out in pain the nurse would tell me that if they give me medication it could kill me and she would ask me if I want to live.  I had to undergo another spinal tap, it was deemed tramatic because they claimed I moved.  I don’t know how they think that was possible when someone was literally holding me in a C-shaped position on my side.  The concerning part is there were RBC and proteins in the sample and it was “slightly bloody” in appearance and yet I was told that it was normal!!!  I didn’t find all of this out until I received the report after discharge.  What the doctors did find was a Mycoplasma infection in my right upper lobe and a Chlamydia Pneamoniae infection.  Double whammy.

My spirometer which to is used to prevent my lungs from collapsing. Not my most flattering photo.

I only spent one night in the ICU, but 5 days in the hospital in total.  Then I missed an additional week of school because I was so week!  As you can imagine, catching up from missing two and a half weeks of college is nearly impossible.  It is not the same as missing two and a half weeks of high school especially when you plan on graduating in December.  Most of my professors were understanding and allowed me to make up my work at my own pace as long as I finished my work by December 12^th since my graduation date was December 13^th.  However, there is always the one professor that has to be difficult and this time was no different then any other time.  He insisted everything get done on his time and on deadlines that at times seemed unrealistic, but I proved that they were realistic because I got the assignments done and made up the tests that I had missed.  I ended up with a B+ in his class for the semester and a 3.465 for the semester.  Not too shabby.

Most importantly though I am alive.  All too often, we take this simple gift for granted; we assume that it is a right to live until old age.  Losing my right to walk, my willpower to live at times, and going through unbareable pain has taught me to truly cherish every day.  A test is just a test, in five years will that test really matter; am I going to remember failing?  I have began making an effort to tell people how much they mean to me and how they impact my life because what if I never have the chance to again.  I am realizing how precious life is and how short it can be.  As strange as this may seem, this life changing incident has helped me lose some of my insecurities that I had about my life.  I am realizing I don’t have time to put up with unhappiness, fake friendships, or petty fights. 

My roommates from last year and I- tailgating homecoming weekend.

My Dad and I on top of Reddish Knob.  Feeling alive after nearly dying.

"Where there is a will, there is a way. Fight for what you believe in." I guess there was a reason I felt compelled to write this on the top of Reddish Knob with my Dad.  Never stop fighting, especially for what you believe in.  

“Whatever you want to do, do it.  There’s only so many tomorrows.”

Isn't it ironic?

Although I hate birthdays, I did have an enjoyable day on May 31^st, which was my 22^nd birthday.  The day began with my roommate Meghan and I going on a sunrise hike somewhere off of Skyline drive; it was spontaneous and fun.  The hike didn’t go as planned, probably because of our lack of planning but I think that comes along with turning 22.  We had more fun trying to find a hiking path and trying to see the sunrise, then actually seeing the quote on quote perfect sunrise.  After my birthday hike, I was fortunate enough to enjoy breakfast at one of my favorite local diners that has mostly organic food including the coffee!  I, of course, indulged because it was my birthday and I was with one of my closest friends!  Following breakfast, I had a bit of down time, which wasn’t really even down time because my phone was blowing up with people wanting to wish me a Happy Birthday.  After talking to my sister on the phone, who was in California at the time, I headed to Crosskeys Vineyard to truly embrace being 22 with two of my roommates!  We did a wine tasting and then did an additional glass of wine; I must say I was truly “feeling” 22 after that.  You would probably expect the day to be over by now, but nope I decided to go downtown and have pizza at a local pizza shop that opened with my two roommates and then the girl that got me through the year with the PICC line!  I couldn’t have been more excited to that she attended the dinner; she would change my PICC line dressing weekly and sometimes more than that if I had sweat too much or had gotten it wet.  She was a blessing.  The day as a whole was picture perfect with people that have helped me bridge the gap from 21 to 22.

Meghan and I on our sunrise hike

I somehow found this ironic that I saw this deer on my 22nd birthday and I was able to find it magestical and peaceful even though this animal has caused me such pain and devestation.  Isn't it ironic?  Life can just be so strange sometimes.

Birthday dinner with the girls

In terms of how things are going since my last blog post, I would say okay.  My summer has had its ups and its downs, but isn’t that life!  Someone broke into my house last month, but luckily my lease was up at the end of July so I just moved into a different townhouse in a different development.  So far I really like my new roommate.  He has a dog named Angel, who really gets a long well with my dog Kona, which is a huge plus for me!  They run in circles all day and tire each other out; it’s great!

As far as health goes, I was doing quite well in the beginning of the summer besides my gallbladder issues, which are a setback, but in terms of Lyme I felt like I was making progress!  I ended up getting a HIDA scan and an ultrasound of my abdomen to check out the gallbladder; the results lead the radiologist to believe that I have biliary dyskensia.  Pretty much all biliary dyskensia is, is a big fancy word to say that my gallbladder doesn’t contract when I eat fatty foods.  It sounds like it would be great because then I would avoid the fatty foods and everything would be swell, but it isn’t that simple.  For my stomach, nuts are considered fatty foods at this point.  The discomfort that many foods are giving me isn’t worth it, I ended up going to see the surgeon and he says that surgery has a 70-75% chance of taking my symptoms away.  My symptoms are pain after eating, abdominal discomfort, severe bloating, gas, shoulder pain, nausea, etc.  I would say those are pretty high odds.  This surgeon wants to do the surgery robotically, which I am a bit skeptical of because there is more pain initially after the surgery.  I guess we will see though, the surgery is scheduled for August 14^th. 

As for my current protocol, it hasn’t changed since I got my PICC out; the only thing that has changed is that we added another day of Diflucan in my protocol.  Oh, I am also taking Activated Charcoal to aid in detoxing as recommended by the Biotoxins doctor that I have been seeing for a few months now.  I just started taking that, so as of now I have nothing to report on if I think it is working or not.  I did try the Protandim and I did not think that helped me.  It was worth a shot, I read so many things on the Internet and on support group websites that I end up trying these supplements if people say it helps them and if/when it doesn’t help me, I feel such a personal defeat.  I know it is not the end of the world, there is always another pill, another doctor.  But more importantly there is another day; I have to remember I am only 22.

“There are years that ask questions, and years that answer.”

Looking at a shadow

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.”

Vacations-Never Again

Let’s me just begin to say, I am sorry for this long overdue blog post.  I know people enjoy reading my blog posts and I do apologize for not getting this post out sooner.  My family and I made it to Florida on Saturday because we stopped Friday night somewhere in South Carolina, I believe if memory serves me correctly.  Almost every hotel was booked when we pulled off the exit around 10:30/11 because all of the spring breakers were crashing for the night.  We didn’t care where we stayed all we needed was somewhere to crash too, however, we weren’t willing to risk our safety for a night’s stay.  After pulling up to 3 or 4 hotels and my Dad hopping out of the car, running in then running back out into the car, only to tell us that the hotel was full like the rest, we finally found a hotel.  We stayed in a pretty crappy room for $119 dollars; my Dad is a man of reason and he tried to bargain his way down.  We have AAA, but these people know that this is their season and bottom line is they could charge whatever they would like and we would pay because everywhere was booked!  She essentially said you can pay or keep driving.  How nice.

We paid and enjoyed our night’s stay.  The rest of the drive wasn’t bad except for the fact by the end I think we were all ancy and wanted to get there to enjoy the warmth especially my poor sister.  The Indiana winter ate away at her; it’s lonely there and it doesn’t help that her roommate situation isn’t ideal.  She is a night owl and has a lot of family issues.  She doesn’t know how to communicate appropriately and things are worse since my sister told her they weren’t living together next year.  Needless to say, I think my sister needed the sun more than any of us did.  By the time we got to my grandparents house, I threw on my bathing suit and darted towards the pool.  I didn’t waste any time, I felt bad not visiting with my grandparents long especially since they weren’t staying more than a night with us but I NEEDED the pool and a tan.  I don’t think I have ever appreciated 4 hours more in my life and that isn’t an exaggeration.  The sun was warm, but not island hot where you feel uncomfortable; I was surrounded by all of the people I love and I was away from school.  After spending the day at the pool, I went home to nap and that is when I received the dreaded phone call.

The microbiologist had left me a message saying he needed me to call him as soon as possible.  It was a Saturday, if a microbiologist tells you to call them on a Saturday as soon as possible that isn’t a good sign.  I stepped outside the house because I didn’t want to make a seen and I called, only to have my stomach drop the lowest it has gone in awhile.  He told me he had found an unusual amount of bacteria in my blood, which would explain why I am not feeling better.  I took a deep breath, not crying, I was too numb for tears.  How could this happen on my vacation?  I never go away.  I will never go away again because clearly I am not meant to go away.  Bad things happen when I go away.  All I wanted to do was enjoy a few days with my family.  In my head the rationale I was experiencing was that I had just tasted a bit of heaven and it was just snatched out from under me again.  I asked a few more questions like what bacteria was it?, should I go to the hospital to get my line out?, could he call my dr?, etc.   He didn’t have any answers at this stage in the game.  He said let me identify the bacteria which should be by tomorrow then we can move from there.  I was freaking out, what am I supposed to do in Florida knowing that?  I don’t even have a doctor there.  I don’t know where the hospital is. 

I calmly went back in side and I asked if I could speak to my Dad before we ate dinner in the other room.  I explained the entire situation to my Dad.  He asked me if I needed to leave Florida.  He said we could go home.  I thought I needed to fly home but my parents had a point, with the information we knew at that point what were they going to do for me at home.  I couldn’t do anything at home differently than I could in Florida until we at least had different information.  I said okay fine I understand.  I tried to enjoy the rest of the night, but how could you with information like that.  I kept thinking I had a fever too, maybe out of paranoia but still! 

The whole time I was in Florida I laid out in the sun and I slept entirely too much, an unhealthy amount of time.  I would be concerned for the average person had they slept as much as I did.  Skip a few days and it is Tuesday morning, my Mom is waking me up telling me we are flying home.  She wants me to get my line pulled out and I wanted to too.  No one should have bacteria in their blood, which is by definition another round of Sepsis!  On Sunday the bacteria still hadn’t been able to be identified and same with on Monday, which was very aggravating, but they thought gram negative.  Scary.  While in the airport waiting to board the plane, my doctor called my Mom’s cell phone with an update on the blood culture FINALLY.  My doctor told my Mom that the blood culture came back as cocci bacteria, for those of you that are reading this and don’t know what cocci bacteria are, it is usually gonorrhea.  It can be two other types of bacteria, but in most cases it is gonorrhea; however, I knew that it wasn’t gonorrhea, but convincing my doctor and Mom this while in the airport was quite the task.  My doctor straight up asked me if I was having sex currently and if I was at the risk for STD’s because then this would be a concern.  She said as my healthcare provider she needs to know especially considering I am on IV medication, which I completely understand but I wasn’t lying!  Then I asked if I had gonorrhea wouldn’t they have caught it when I had sepsis in January and was hospitalized; they answer was yes.  Plus I wasn’t sure if gonorrhea was one of those STD’s that you could get from a toilet seat and have no idea or if it had to be sex.  The worst part wasn’t my mother’s reaction actually; the worst part was I couldn’t really ask questions because I was in the airport.  There were people sitting all around me and I couldn’t ask direct questions; I would say “it”, “this”, “contracted”, etc.  And I had to sit on a plane with this news. 

More to come soon be patient.

“Who I am and what I am capable of doing has always managed to surprise me.”