What were we just talking about?

I usually hate Daylight Savings Time, in fact I still do. Fortunately, it crept up on me last minute this year and only knew about it a few days ago so I wasn't dreading the losing an hour of sleep for like a month. I still don't like this day because with or without Lyme Disease I lose sleep and I'm sure it's going to take awhile to catch up on my sleep again. 2 am, it's not so bad, but I know I'll be up for probably a couple more hours before I can fall asleep.

I had a list last night of things I was supposed to do today, other than wake up and eat dinner, the rest of that list got lost in my sleep and utter forgetfulness to do anything these days. It's like my brain has this switch; sleep, eat something or sometime, go to room, spend hours doing nothing or talk to my boyfriend. I like this list, don't get me wrong but I feel lazy, I AM LAZY, but my brain does nothing to turn the switch off. I would love to go and take a walk when the weather is not too crazy outside, or clean my room, do laundry, get ready for my huge move to Texas; but somewhere in between all of that thinking is nothing. I forget. My brain shuts down. All I can think of is what I am doing at that moment and even sometimes I forget that too. I had a scary moment the other night. I was talking on the phone with my boyfriend and we were talking about something interesting and as soon as we changed subjects I had no clue what we had just talked about for the past 15 minutes until he said something again about it about a minute later. I was about to ask him what we had just talked about, but it scared me because that has never happened before.

Having Lyme Disease is very frustrating at times especially when you have more neurological symptoms than anything else. Lyme fog or brain fog, forgetfulness, poor memory, fatigue, confusion, not being able to think of words, not remembering where you are driving to, anxiety, insomnia - these are just to name a few symptoms of what I deal with everyday. The fogginess has pretty much left since I started on Vit. B-12 shots in January, which also helped my energy level for a short time. My memory which used to be excellent is shoddy at best, sometimes people have to remind me of conversations I had with them just so I know what were talking about. It scares me sometimes that this is it, this is what the rest of my life is going to be like. If I had more musculoskeletal symptoms, like joint pain and what not it wouldn't be such a big deal. I've had degenerated knee arthritis for years in both knees, multiple surgeries, I can deal with pain, I've had to. But this is a completely different pain, a pain I can't simply take a pill for or fall asleep to it or stretch and exercise it out. No this is a pain I can't even touch because it's in my brain, and it's the pain of losing my mind. That's what it feels like, slowly but surely.

I know, I know, people tell me it's only going to get better and you'll heal from this, but the horror stories I've read, I'm in my mid 20's, I'm too young for all of this. I'm not throwing a pity party, I'm just scared that this isn't going to leave me. I've been on antibiotics for almost a month now and I can say that I do feel better, not ready to pack up and move to Texas better, but overall I'm feeling better. If I can get my sleep,then maybe this will get even more better. For now, it's waiting, hoping, praying that all of this will soon pass and the short amount of time in my whole life I spent with Lyme Disease will feel like a dream one day.

Tonight I'm having a little bit of a hard time, but most days I'm optimistic. At least now I'm on antibiotics, now it's just the waiting to heal. Whether that takes another week, month, six months or a year ( I pray it's not a year) I'm going to be hopeful and optimistic and look forward to the days where I can have a good night sleep without any medications, I can play a game of softball without tiring by the end of the first inning, and I can go live my life to the fullest extent I can, knowing what I have gone through these past 18 months. This is a trial God has given me in my life, I hope that at the end I can learn and hopefully help someone who is going through I was have gone through.

Nights of the Living Insomniac

It's 4:30 am, a pretty typical night for me. Try to go to bed before midnight, toss and turn for a couple of hours sometimes I fall asleep, sometimes I'm up, like tonight; and that is with taking prescription sleep meds. I thought I had it figured out. I've been dealing with insomnia for about 16 months now. It first started out with me waking up in around 3 am with an anxiety attack, for no reason. I wasn't stressed, I was back living with my parents, no school, no work, nothing. But I couldn't get sleep and it was making me go crazy. Fast forward a year later, still dealing with insomnia issues but after trying different sleep medications, going and doing a sleep study, I got on a better sleeping schedule. I was doing really well in January. I was only taking my anti-anxiety medication at night to help me fall asleep and keep my anxiety down (another side effect of the Lyme disease), but as soon as I started on antibiotics, it's like my body does not want to sleep, it does, but I am so messed up on my sleep cycle that I get sometimes only 4 hours a night or sometimes 11, which usually puts me at waking up around noon or later. It's been a frustrating cycle, one I need to break. If sleep medication isn't helping I need to find out if maybe my antibiotics and everything else I'm taking is making me not sleep. I need sleep, not just because it's restful, but also because I need it to get healthy and well. The more stress I put on my body, the more time it will take for me to get over this, and believe me 18 months is long enough to feel this way. I'm hoping just a couple more months and I'm back to being normal and well.

Stepping into the Light

I've never been one to keep a steady journal, or blog regularly, though I've always had a passion for writing since I was a child. I would go months and months without writing in my diary or post a new blog but in the end never continue on with it. This I'm hoping will change or at least will be different as I'm going through this stage in my life. In August of 2010, after 11 months of suffering through sickness, pain, doctors, tests, insomnia, anxiety, exhaustion and feeling like I was going crazy, I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease. The relief that flooded into me after hearing the initial diagnosis was overwhelming, but I finally had an answer. One day I'll or maybe it will take several, I'll write about those 11 months and these past 7 months of waiting until I was able to start treatment. It came down to this; I was done, I couldn't wait any longer on my doctor and I needed to stop putting my life on hold for this disease that has been slowly and painfully taking over my mind and body the past 18 months. So now I'm on antibiotics, large doses, and I'm not really sure where or when this will end. I'm hoping only a couple of months. We'll see. Until that time, I'll be here, writing, putting down my thoughts as I struggle to overcome this disease that has taken so much of my time.