My First Entry

I opened a blog account with blogspot a few months ago, and never made any entries. I'm not really sure why, but I suppose like every other thought process with this disease, I felt that blogging when you have Lyme means you are really sick.

I am really sick. I gave a brief overview of the beginnings of this nightmare under my title. Had they allowed me more than 500 characters I would have written more.

My Lyme diagnosis came in September 2007, 2 weeks before Claude (husband) and I were to leave for our 25th anniversary trip to Europe. I was really ill with a flu like bug, with all kinds of other symptoms. I had tests along with a trip to the ER and finally had a diagnosis of Lyme Disease. Our trip was postponed.

Treatment began, starting with 200 mg of Doxycycline. I got a little better but after 2 months, still had many remaining symptoms. Malaise, bodyaches, headaches, insomnia, confusion, to name the short list. After doing some online research the pieces of the puzzle started to come together. Years before my diagnosis, I had lot of strange things going on. Nothing that pointed to anything specifically. I knew I was doing less and less, napping in the afternoon, having trouble concentrating. I had an event where after a root canal, I had horrific nerve pain in my left jaw, along with a stiff neck and headache. I was told I had Trigeminal Neuralgia and given meds for that. I just didn't feel well most of the time. I had 4 Western Blot Lyme Tests in the years after the root cancel episode to September 2007. All Lyme test results were negative.

...but I had a family. My kids were college and high school age. I worked at the photography business. I pushed past things. I told myself, everyone has little aches and pains. We are all getting older. Maybe I am just hypersensitive. None of the doctors I saw thought there was anything wrong.

Within those years, assuming I was first bitten in 2004, Lyme spirochetes were burrowing deeper and deeper into every muscle and nerve ending in my body just waiting for a time to take over and change my life forever. And so they have, and I have decided that this story deserves to be noted. Please forgive me if my grammar isn't as accurate as it could be, a typo appears here and there, or if my entries aren't consistent. This disease changes from day to day, and offers no reliability to my energy level or ability to think clearly. Please be patient. Lyme is not a disease for the impatient.......so I have learned.