First Decade with Lyme

 Ten Years Today!

On this day, ten years ago was when my life changed and I learned what it meant to be seriously ill. I broke my arm, had lyme in my body (unknowingly) and my health spiraled from there on out.

UNTIL I went to the lyme clinic in Kansas. Today, I feel like I am just as happy and just as able bodied as before I was sick. I feel great, I do all kinds of activities these days. Im still pushing at the gym, even though progress is slow. I go to visit my soon-to-be graduate school this weekend to see where Ill be living for the next four years of my life starting in April. 

I have a lot to look forward too outside of my health these days. Not every lyme patient is given this fortunate of an opportunity to move on with their life. I still take supplements, I take some things for autoimmune and for methylation and sleep. Which may seem like a lot, but considering these items work well enough that one skipped day makes me feel different, I feel like they count for a lot. 

I had a set of labs done in mid December 2020, my ANA was checked (autoimmune factors) plus standard CBC and lipids. I still have no cholesterol, that one stumps my lyme doctor to no end. He's given me stuff for my stomach/gallbladder/liver and changed things over and over and my body refuses to make cholesterol. My ANA is going down, its at the lowest it can be without being negative-which is fantastic. ANA may never test negative again, but as long as I feel well and the markers are rock bottom I do not really have anything to care about. I take two Apex Energetics products, Trizomal Glutathione and Nitric Balance and personally I think those two items are what have pushed my autoimmune down to a safe level. I still have kept on a regular dose on these two items, I have yet to drop down to a maintenance dose.

I run pretty hard, between my mildly questionable sleep schedule, work stress (recently quit my job of 5.5 years-but thats a story for another day), projects, the gym, planning for grad school and having a social life-I don't keep much down time. I enjoy staying busy because I was not able to for so long in my life. BUT with this, comes a price, I have  to take care of my body. I have to take my vitamins, I have to put myself in bed by a decent time in the evening, and I have to limit junk food. I also have to manage stress (people without chronic illness could be doing better in this category too!). If I stay consistent with these items I feel great and life is good. 

Yes I still have occasional days where I am not motivated and I do not want to do anything, but I attribute it to running hard more so than lyme. I do not have aches and pains associated with lyme, dizziness has been gone forever. 

Ten years ago, if someone said I was one day going to be going to chiropractic school to become a doctor because I had struggled with pain and disease for so long I wouldn't have believed it. I wanted to do some sort of sports, I wanted to get a degree in marine biology after high school. Instead I am going an entirely different direction in my life and I love it. 

I look back and this time has gone by so quickly, but I have not forgotten how terrible some of it was. I remember a few years ago how painful my anxiety and OCD was, that time period feels like it lasted forever. I was seriously afraid that would never end, that was a nightmare and nothing more. The early years with lyme, I spent trying to convince my parents and doctors that I had lyme and what having lyme meant. That was a long process in itself, its a complicated disease to explain to someone whose never had this sort of health issue. I am convinced, through my uncountable conversations with others about health, that lyme and co-infections are a category all in their own. Its not like cancer, it can be similar to autoimmune disease but at the same time it can be the cause of autoimmune, its different from thyroid disorders, its not even close to diabetes-just for some examples. 

I have so so much to be grateful for, my teachers, especially my psych teachers in college. They taught me so much on what it means to be able to manage stress and why its important. My whole journey has taught me about being compassionate and caring for others. 

Im glad im going into the next decade feeling like I have a sturdy ground to stand on, and I have God to thank for that more than anything else.