On the Lyme front, Mid-Kid wrote this week about her daily dealings with it. All three daughters go back on Monday to the Lyme doctor. We look forward to hearing what #3’s blood work has to say. Does she have dengue fever too? It is quite common for those with Lyme to also have this dreaded fever antibody in their blood.
The youngest has responded very well to the change in protocol. She has actually smiled and laughed this week. She has showed signs of being her old self. She had not realized how poorly she was feeling. How she had lost her smile and how tired her eyes looked. I had told her numerous times while we were down south that she probably was unaware of how bad she was feeling all of the time. The cheery girl had become a tired and worn out old woman…It is a joy to see the cheery girl returning. She actually said one day this week that she couldn’t believe how good she felt! Lest I leave you with the impression that after three weeks she is all better, she is not, she has had some fever and some eye twitching this week….we know that she too has a ways to go.
When I go down a mental check list of my symptoms, I know I had a set back while down south. (The last couple of weeks there I knew I needed to leave the stress behind and just go, I could feel the stress taking me down—Lyme likes anything that the immune system has to fight!) I have not regained all of the setback yet. I see this most in the area of not being able to read for any length of time which means that my attention span is shortened back up again. I am only able to concentrate for short snipets…I manage to get work done like this by taking ten steps for every two so it takes me longer than it should to accomplish my tasks but at least I have energy most days to get up out of the chair without having to force myself to work.
This lack of being able to do any serious reading also seems to tie in with my lack of conversational fluidity. That had improved and has now fallen back off. These are of course neurological and thus it also affects that feeling of quietness that I get. It does not feel like depression but more just being silent not wanting conflict with anything or anyone…causing one to plod along with life by themselves. It is very interesting because I have never been able to figure this one out. The plodding along a lone in a crowd, the not wanting to be alone but wanting people to leave you alone….This had improved as well but has returned, although not as bad as it was.
On the other fronts, I have been having random pains, which was not a symptom that I had much of before. And I still have the profound muscle weakness and stiff hands. Positive reports would be that the numbness in my left shoulder does not occur very often anymore but my ears still ring pretty badly and I did have some light sensitivity problems this week, which was new. The crawling sensation on my scalp and skin has come back but it is not as intense. Instead of feeling like I have a colony of June beetles crawling across my scalp it now feels more like ants. I consider that a major improvement because I don’t like it when I feel like I have bugs crawling all over half of my brain—down my arm is okay but not my scalp!
And while my hands are stiff my handwriting has improved. Loss of handwriting ability is a sign of Chronic Lyme-it is a fine motor skill. Our oldest daughter had trained herself to write in this beautiful Spencerian Script but at the height of her illness one struggled to read what she wrote due to the deterioration of her fine motor skills.
Other improvements, I haven’t had any heart palpitations of late and the air hunger has greatly improved but I have had a wave or two of nausea and some bowel cramping. Plus, this week I have had balance issues. Every day is different…but overall, there has been improvement.
Hubby has had some “tired days” this week. He has been a bit silent too so I suspect that he too is battling with his own quiet Lyme issues. We haven’t run down our Lyme checklists for several weeks…it is about time to do that again.
Well that is the health report here at our place…except for the part about my having a patch of poison ivy inside my right elbow…fortunately, my plantain salve helps with the itching.