There is no doubt that Chronic Lyme and the co-infections has some aspects to it that affects the mental state. An odd thing began to happen to me this summer and because of it I have been better able to understand my children and my husband. I cannot put a day or a time on it but at some point I began to realize that I was not conversational any longer. Nor was the family; we shared time together, conversed lightly even enjoyed being in one another's presence. But eventually we would all wander off to our own little corners. We are a family that has always talked, enjoyed conversation, and one another. So this aspect of our lives was deeply concerning to me.
At first I thought it was just our way of dealing with the stress of our lives. Being full time caretakers does take its toil. There is no glamor here, no patting oneself on the back. We get tired, grumpy and some times just plain worn out and that could manifest itself in withdrawal but that has never been our pattern in the past and we have shared many stressful times together.
Then I began to realize that when I tried to talk to others that I often found myself unable to coherently get my thought processes vocalized. I really felt this problem over the weeks of the spring and summer when I was working the farmers markets. Being a good vendor requires that you talk and interact with the customers. I had days when words would just not flow out with any ease.
Early in the summer I realized that when I wrote I would mix up my prepositional phrases...So I would write and then go back and heavily edit what I wrote. I also realized that this left my usual conversational tone rather flat and lifeless. That of course makes for boring blogging. About the same time I began to realize that I was having problems remembering how to spell words. I have never been a National Spelling Bee winner but it was by far not my worst subject. Then I began to realize that I was having key stroke errors when I typed. I am (was) a fairly good typists. I think the typing problem is more due to stiff fingers than muscle memory issues.
I first talked with the oldest daughter about the mixed up prepositional phrases...I thought it was so very weird, could this be part of the Chronic Lyme symptoms?
Then I talked with the second daughter about the being non-conversational, since this seemed to be something that I had noticed in her as well. My mother used to always call Mid Kid a little chatter box. For those of you that read her blog, you know that Mid Kid is not unable to articulate, but it seems to come out better in digits than in speech.
At some point in the past 12-18 months, I began to realize that the youngest daughter had begun to not prattle on and on like she used to. She has talked almost non-stop since the womb and this lack of continual conversation seemed something other than just maturity. Particularly since we are close family and talking to one another has been perpetual from birth.
The other day, I was writing out a symptom list and doing some research I came across this phrase "conversational fluidity". These words seemed to describe my thoughts about my family and our lack of conversations. To be more specific it is not as if we can't speak but more like we can't hold onto a conversation except for a short time. It seems different than the "foggy brain" feeling. It is not like the common "word block" that Lymies have but more like it is just too hard to stay engaged in a conversation. Almost like the words do not want to flow from the brain to the tongue...and some times when they do they do come out misspoken or with the wrong inflection. It is like you know what you want to say but you can't get it processed properly. You get started talking and in mid stream you just lose the flow of it all. Similar to getting the prepositional phrases mixed up. Mid Kid drops her articles. And sentences end rather abruptly.
On a bit different note but still related to communication.
It is not uncommon for Lymies to have raspy voices and random sore throats (meaning off and on during the day) I have had a raspy voice since late last spring. I was reading a series of books out loud to Hubby before bed and during that time frame I realized that after I read for a while my throat would get raspy--this became such a problem that I mentioned to him several times that I did not understand why my voice was doing this.....I had no symptoms of allergies. And since then, my voice has gotten almost perpetually raspy.
Currently the youngest daughter has full blown laryngitis. This began once she started the protocol so the best guess is that she has shaken up the bugs making them angry. She had a day when she was totally unable to speak. She is not sick, she does not feel sick, she does have the random sore throat issue.
Just a glimpse of the oddness of Chronic Lyme....