The Monster

I feel like I am being crushed by this disease. Like it's this huge monster that chases me; occasionally I am able to sneak around the corner and get a few days or hours of relief but then it finds me again and is right on my tail. I can't fun fast enough to get away from it. It's smart and mean and deliberate and it is knocking the life out of me.

I am still sick with this URI. It's been over a week now, and the Dr. says it could last 2 weeks. My husband is now sick with it and is upstairs in bed. I haven't purchased a Xmas Card or a gift for anyone. It's snowing today in the northeast and my slope of a driveway is completely impassable. I feel like a prisoner in this house.

I look out the sliding glass door from my family room, and see the snow covering the trees in the woods. I have watched the seasons change from spring to summer, to fall, to winter from that slider for too many years now, feeling sick. The winter is the worst. I remember thinking last winter that possibly this year we would be somewhere else for Xmas...maybe somewhere warm with our family. I also think about the many many winters, my husband and I would take our kids skiing for the week in between Xmas and New Years. They learned to ski and they still love it today. Now I feel like I can hardly make it the mailbox let alone down a slope with skis strapped to my feet.

My 94 year old mother and her dear friend were kind enough to go to the store for me yesterday. They brought over some chicken soup she had made and some groceries. At 94 should she be doing this for me? Shouldn't it be the other way around? I know she is afraid for me. She doesn't have the power of the internet and remains somewhat in the dark about infectious disease and the potential ramifications that Lyme can have. She is eternally hopeful. She is my mother no matter how badly she feels with her arthritis ridden body. She wants to help.

I missed another outing with friends this week. I haven't seen one of these friends in over a year. Too sick to go. It makes me sad when milestones like this happen and I am again, absent.

Sometimes I feel like I am fighting a fight which is unwinable. My Dr's are the best in the field...they don't have the CDC or the NIH behind them in treatment protocols. They do the best they can, given what little research has been done independently. Some days, I feel like it would be easier to just give up, stop taking all these antibiotics and let Lyme Disease takes it course with me. It would ultimately mean a cruel erosion of my nervous system, early onset Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, ALS or MS and eventually the organs of my body. That kind of death scares me so I guess I must just keep running from the monster.