"My bodies aching and my time is at hand,,," early AM rant

[preciousdove]

I am sooooo tired of being sick. I got Lyme Disease in 1974 that did awful things and was not diagnosed until 1990. By that time I had developed or it had morphed into MS. Lyme is in the class of diseases they call "The Great Imitator". "When you have seen (insert spirochetal disease here) you have seen all of medicine." The last quote is from a older medical text and is the opening to "Bad Blood".

Along the way I have been through hell and what is worse is that if it is the Lyme that is imitating something else the medicines for that might kill you but if it is actually the "something else" and you don't treat it that can kill you. I have a drawer full of medicines I reluctantly take.

I have been fighting a staff infection in the bones of my face and jaw since at least 1999. Surgery 6 weeks ago finally rooted the last of it out. I was rehabbing hoping to get a bit of normal back. My youngest sons wedding was two weekends ago and because I was so weak I was an "honored guest" rather than the whirling dervish that I was at my first sons wedding. Last Sunday I was invited to a 95th birthday for a shirttail cousin I met doing genealogy. Bright, funny, independent and compassionate how could I not go even though travel would make it another all day event.

I came home with my feet and hands swollen. Its happened before I sleep and it goes away. Except it didn't and it slowly spread on Monday even though I took it easy. On Tuesday I had to get groceries and I thought since taking it easy didn't work I would try that little activity. Yesterday I staid in bed and by yesterday afternoon I am becoming the Pillsbury dough girl and I have that constant annoying little cough our pets would get when they went into heart failure. I went in to a late appointment on standby and they discovered that it is my heart, it is enlarged and with the tests they are running it could be mild (at this point) congestive heart failure. The doctor tells me that this could be from the staff infection, from an under active thyroid (poster child but tests show nothing) or I was trying to do do much too soon (as opposed to sitting at home and staring at the four walls for the rest of my life).

Now we get back to that Lyme although treated with antibiotics for years you can kind of go by old books and movies that at the end stage your teeth fall out, you go crazy and your heart fails. (I came into this world a bit "off" so it will be hard to tell when I am at end stage crazy) but now my heart is failing.

The Lasix went to work quickly and I was already feeling better by bed time but when I woke up to pee 5 hours later I ache all over where the swelling was and my hip joints are on fire. I have to go into my PC doc today for more tests.

I have a loving family. I have my wits about me and can pinch a penny til it screams so I am not "in poverty". The tests they are going to want to do are probably enough to make this temporarily worse.

Going out on the ice floe has crossed my mind the last couple of days. It didn't help to read in the waiting room about Joan London, same age as me who decided to surrogate out a second set of twins in just two years. Last October I had to let my son put my impish toddler grandchild in daycare because I could not chase him and he knew it. Making grandma holler and chase him was fun! Miss him terribly and I miss seeing his parents everyday too. Okay so my so called "boyfriend" we both had heath problems so when the few hours a week we were together we would pretend we were Tracy and Hepburn died peacefully in his sleep in February. So maybe it is just a sad year and if I get though this crisis there may be life on the other side but there is the possibility it will only go downhill from here.

BTW I love DU. This armchair activist has an healthy outlet for changing what ails my world.


I got sick when I was 24, thirty years ago.

[blondeatlast]

1. Lord knows I sympathize with you.

It's so nice to have our own little "pub" where we're entitled to our legitimate complaints. That's why I pushed for this forum.

I can't speak to your condition, but I just got outta health jail with my seventh coronary stent (I'm only 46) and last night, of all things, my insulin pump gave up the ghost completely. It gave this pathetic little beep, and out it went. I'm waiting for a loaner, but it was just the topper to a horrible month.

Sometimes it is so hard to keep plugging away when all you want to do is shrug off the personal hell for a bit, regardless of the tragedy it poses for others. Being sick is just incredibly wretched and tiring and "healthy" types just cannot get it. I'm fortunate that I have a wonderful hubby and incredible 8 year old son to inspire me when all else gives way. Without them, I guarantee, I'd be thinking about that ice floe myself.

Hang in there if you can, and feel free to let it out here. That's why we are here and I've found it incredibly helpful. I love to hear other's problems, as my medical problems often pale in comparison--I'm fortunate not to be in pain or unable to move much, for instance.

I, for one, am pulling for you, and I know I'm not alone. Weep if it makes you feel better, but at least do it in this: :toast:--for managing to survive for thirty years--that is really quite an accomplishment!

I was diagnosed at seven, so I really don't know what it is to live a non-diseased life--I consider myself fortunate NOT to have those memories.

DU has been incredibly helpful, and I thank Skinner from the bottom of my metallurgically enhaced ticker for this forum.

Love ya--really I do. Stop in here anytime. :hug:

[preciousdove]

2. Thanks so much. I read it that day but couldn't reply

...because I was going to start crying and I had to be someplace and when I cry I get all red in the face and look like a silly clown.