Fall Update 2020

 Happy October!

Well. I guess its pretty much November at this point, but either way I finally made it back to writing a post. 

In short, life is good! Ive tried to make that my catchphrase, cause now that I am on the other side, I can see that most "problems" aren't really problems. Little things can add up and make for a stressful day, yes, but its important to just move on when the day is over. Write it out, pray on it, keep swimming.

One of my friends has commented towards me several times that I am "fearless", from things that I see as little things that did not stress me out or bother me. I was with this friend recently, in his car, and we got hit by a deer at 10:30pm. I saw it, he didn't. My heart never even raced, I just turned to him and said "we hit a deer". He however, pretty flustered!

I think we all know I am not fearless, go back about a year or two's of posts and my fears are painted all over. But my coping and perspective on the world has expanded, and with my health becoming more "normal" my mind and my body match. I know today's problem, will not be tomorrow's problem.

I have noticed working with others with chronic disease, stress management is something they ignore time and time again. Whereas for me, stress management I think ended up being one of my pieces of treatment. 

Stress is terrible for the immune system. Remember that.

The Gym

I still hit it hard at the gym 4-5 times a week consistently! Just being able to do this still  makes me happy, because I couldn't exercise at all for a long portion of my life. Years. Now I can jump in and try new things. I am getting stronger. Weight gain is slow and mildly plateaued, that is one of my current projects I am working on breaking through. I eat more now than a year ago for sure, which is huge for me! I eat a ton more now than two years ago. While I am grateful, I must say, I still need to eat more. I should be eating 2300 cal a day minimum. I probably eat 1700 a day, maybe less some days. Which is better than the 800-1100 previous, but still gotta keep at it!

I have made enough progress at the gym now that friends notice and people can tell I am working on making my body stronger. Whenever someone says that they can see a difference, I know I am doing what I am supposed to and I am finally making visible, tangible progress on my body that the outside world can see. 

School

One month left and I will have my bachelors in psychology!! I could not be more excited. I made straight A's in my summer courses and received a letter from the school, I forget what they called it, but I made the next rank up above Deans List for the summer semester! I am SOOOOO close to doing that again one last time for my semester now. I think I can pull it off, but I still have some work to do. 

I have applied to grad school, just waiting on some responses! I have strongly considered doing my Masters in psychology as well as my doctorate in chiropractic. The amount of courses is a bit overwhelming to think about, but I think one day I will go through with it and have both degrees. Chiropractic is the first priority.

Life

I would say life is good, I am happy. I have bits of depression here and there but its always temporary. I still use the sauna and I eat healthy. I do morning smoothies with veggies, berries and protein almost every day! I did have a bout of anxiety a few weeks ago which was out of the blue, no particular reason that I know of but it just happened. I made sure I was conscious of my eating and sleeping, it passed on its own without any extra effort. When our bodies are treated right, issues can begin to solve themselves! As someone whose had to take a supplement or three for everything over the last...almost decade, I appreciate my body doing the work for me without the need for one more pill.

It is nice spending my week like a "normal" person, thinking about work, school, which friend or two will I get to spend time with, how much time will I have at the gym. I know I have written in the past about how I hated having to dedicate my life to pill taking, doctors visits, struggling with anxiety and OCD shaping my days. It is nice going to work and otherwise being able to use my time as I wish. 

I have so much to be grateful for. I have a solid friend group that I love and appreciate, work is going alright, I am about to finish my first degree, my body is functioning well! I count my blessings often, cause I know how bad life can be

Higher Purpose

 I Want To Share

What helped me through my journey. In the lyme community as a whole, there is a collective feeling of being trapped. Lyme patients, in my opinion, often do not get their health back 100%. I know I was discouraged along the way by fellow lyme patients. Why? To cope? I do not know. Treatment is expensive no matter what route one takes. Some people cannot get better because they cannot afford the stockpile of meds. I remember being told "you may get better, but lyme will always be there causing problems at least a little bit. You cannot get over it."

I hated being told that, I was told that by someone whose opinion I did value. This person is the one who clued me off as to what lyme was, before them I had never heard of lyme disease (what a time in my life to remember!). They taught me a lot, they pushed me in the direction of reading and research. She told me about Cure Unknown by Pamela Weintraub, I *think* that was the first, if not at least one of the first books I ever opened that covered the topic of what is called Lyme Disease. I jumped in and read further, I read more books, I read some books more than once. I became a young adult who was now informed and well developed in their opinion on tick borne illnesses. Somewhere on here I have written specifically on what books I have read and what I thought about them, truth is, if you are not researching on your own to understand how lyme and its treatment works, you could be setting yourself up for failure. Being a nerd saved me, or so I think!

The mentality that I hope I have shared on my blog over the years, I hope, has conveyed positivity and perseverance. Anyone can chose to quit trying and stop searching for the next answer. Anyone can give up their hope. Anyone can lose their faith in God, that everything happens for a reason. 

It takes a stronger person to take on the fighter mentality of I cannot quit. At some point, during the sucking and the suffering and the absolute terror that chronic disease had caused me I realized-I will only ever have one human body. One. I may not can choose what events happen, such as contracting an illness or injury. But I can and should actively make choices, mindful thought-out choices, on how I am going to treat my body. I choose what I put into it. I choose what I put it through. I make choices on what time I wake up and what time I go to sleep. All of these things can make or break a treatment protocol of any kind.

If you want to continuously have pain, continuously have fatigue, just skip out on sleeping. Even if you are an insomniac-get in bed. Turn the lights off. Put on relaxing music or a video to listen to (not watch. no screen!). Weeks/months/years down the road when the neurological burden is reduced, normalized sleep will return. On a sleepless night this whole no tv or light thing is stupid boring. Yes. But training our brains for the correct sleeping pattern is beneficial because one day, our body will listen.

Diet. Everyones favorite four letter word. I followed the 80/20 rule for the most part. Some times I had to be more strict, other times I broke loose. 80% good, healthy, anti-inflammatory foods. 20% less than ideal dietary choices. Remember, results aren't instant. Waiting to feel results could take more than an extended amount of time.

Finally I would like to add-patience. Pray. Hold on tight. Some people get better, some people don't, its just the nature of the beast-but I believe with proper treatment everyone can make progress. 

Its easy to take a pill or few a couple times a day, it's easy because it does not take a significant amount of thought space to plan out taking the pills as compared to planning healthy meals, planning to be in bed, planning to exercise (then come up with what exercise to do). The more thought space something takes, the less time we really want to dedicate to it, as chronic illness patients, sometimes we have no thought space to spend. It is hard and we all fail somewhere along the way. What counts is the process of making a choices on how to react to our failure. Choosing is the operative word here.

Writing

I write to share my experience because it can be hard to find hope in the world. I believe that we live in a fallen world that is only degrading further. I do not believe that a magic pill is going to pop up to cure chronic lyme disease. I would love to be wrong, it could happen. But do not wait on someone else to solve the problem. 

I have drawn much of my hope from other lyme sufferers and I believe that it is my duty to share my experience for those who are still trapped in the dark ball of feeling like death incarnate. Yolanda Hadid is probably one of my favorite Lyme advocates. Her book, Believe Me, is the greatest illustration of what a person with chronic Lyme struggles with. She details that money was not her answer, she had much more financial resources than 99% of people with chronic disease and she still suffered for over a decade. Her mentality is something that, in my opinion, is unmatched by the average person suffering with a disease. She was not the victim, she did not quit, she did not give up. Perseverance kept her going, her children kept her going, she found the things she needed to make her life what she wanted despite severe physical suffering. That is so hard, it doesn't happen overnight, it takes failure and people as a whole tend to fear failure. Keep going and you will never truly fail. 

I believe that one day I will write a book or do something more involved and formal than write a blogger blog, to out reach to those who are trapped in the cycle of chronic disease. I also believe that today, in August of 2020, I am not at that point in my life. I know that I have more goals I want to reach before I can look back and say-not only did I beat Lyme+autoimmune disease but I achieved what Lyme tried to take from me.

Part of what motivates and drives me is knowing that I still have so many goals I want to achieve. Lyme sure did hit a big pause button on what I wanted to do with my life. I was not an athlete of any kind in school, I was one of the smartest until I could no longer think at all, I certainly was no writer. I want to grow my knowledge in psychology and work on being motivational for those who want to give away their hope, I do not think that there can ever be enough motivation. I want to build my body up, I want to feel physically strong, I have never really felt that (and if I ever did, I can't remember that time anymore). 

I feel that these are solid goals to work towards now that I do not chronically suffer from disease. 

I want to share these two videos with you all. I re-watched them this evening for the first time in ages. I was anything but disappointed!

Yolanda Hadid at the Lyme LRA Gala:

Ally Hilfiger -Living the Lyme Life feat. Bella Hadid

Week with the Doctor

Just Completed my Second Week at the Clinic for the Year

I spent the week with the doctor, this is the second trip this year.

It went extremely well, my test results as a whole have stayed consistent and I haven't gotten any worse from the last time I visited the clinic. I have been feeling great, going to the gym 4-5x a week, i've been sleeping well, had decent energy, and for the most part feeling normal. He is happy with the progress I have made since my visit in March, once again he said there is no lyme or pathogen's in my system causing me issues, its just a matter of cleaning up the damage that the lyme has left.

Since this time last year, I have gained around 20lbs, which is a big deal for me. I still need to gain more but it is not something I need to worry too much on. This week the doctor did spend some time focusing on my gut so that in theory I can start eating more sooner rather than later. He is not too discouraged by how much I eat, but he does want my appetite to be more consistent (because some days I couldn't care less if I ate or not).

He did work on my gut, brain, lungs, liver and heart this week and that was it. I am taking probably half of the amount of supplements as to what I normally would be taking-which is fantastic. No parasites either, which was a problem forever. Parasite treatment was the worst too!

I am pretty excited, I won't need to see him again until March next year. If it wasn't for my school schedule limiting when I can and cannot go I probably wouldn't go back to the clinic for a year. My March visit next year will probably be the only visit to the clinic next year, which would be the best yet. This year and last, I visited the clinic two per year. Back when I first started going I went 3x the first year, I think 4x the second because I ended up getting very sick (or it may have been the third year...I would have to look back at my notes). In total I have been going for 5 and a half years, which is daunting to think about. Niether my parents, my doctor, or myself thought it would take this long to get my body back to normal. I still struggle with issues here and there, sometimes I do still feel depressed or defeated, I still just get totally worn out sometimes, and I do have to push myself hard to keep my motivation. But. I am doing well. When I have a bad day, I know it will be short lived. Instead of a bad month its just a bad day. I like being able to live my life without really having to think "oh yea, I have lyme disease"

I have made great progress over the last year, I am feeling much better and feeling more normal. I have to say I have one of the best doctors in the world!

I probably will post less on my blog only because I do not have as much to share, but I am not leaving by any stretch. Years ago when I spent so much time reading lyme blogs I found that some would just end, without any idea as to what happened to the writer. Some others would end when the writer started doing better. I want to continue to catalog and share what happens with my life, because Lyme has been a part of my life for so long it has shaped my future.

Because of Lyme I chose to pursue a career in alternative medicine, I will be applying to grad schools in the next month or two. I plan on becoming a chiropractor, I am also considering pursuing a Masters in psychology so that I could be a counselor in addition. In December of this year, I will finally finish my undergraduate degree in psychology. I am super excited for this!

Years ago, in one of my more emotional posts on what lyme can do to ones mental state, I talked about how I felt like it hurt me more to dream about the future because I was not healthy or capable enough to do the things I needed and wanted. I feel like now, I can dream all I want and my body wont be what holds me back. I know psychologically I will struggle a little bit more than others when it comes to some things, but because I know that and I have had some great resources, I will now be able to cope more so than in the past. Brain fog and forgetfulness still happens, it may even be a "normal" amount-truthfully I don't know. My doctor told me that most likely what will happen is that I will start remembering more from here on out, but the things I have forgotten over the years may or may not come back. SO five years from now I will remember this point forward, but some things from five years ago now I may never get back. Which is ok, because I still am making progress.

I have some other "health" goals I need to push for myself that all of us, chronic or not, need to be working on. I have mentioned before about how much my psychology teachers have pushed us to manage our stress, because that will be the prevention we need to keep away from all sorts of ailments. I need to work some more on my spirituality, I have gotten so bad at reading books of any kind because it is hard for me to sit down and read-especially if it is something I want to read to remember. I need to get back into doing some reading and studying, outside of school.

I pray often but I would not say I have been pushing my relationship with God very much as I should be.

I want to continue being able to share with others with lyme or chronic illness that there is hope, ignore what the doctors or naysayers say and push your own pathway towards healing. I have no idea if I will ever have a lyme flair again, I may not or I may have a lot more ahead. Who knows. But what will count is how I handle it mentally, physically and emotionally.

Third Post for the Year

Looks Like I Have Been More Quiet Than I Thought

I am happy to report that no news, is in fact good news! I have been feeling well and staying active!
This last year, especially since post-December 2019 or so, I have felt like my body is not longer struggling like it used to.
Bad days are much more rare than before, I rarely have much pain at all, my sleep is pretty good but most of all consistent.
Sleeping better has made all the difference of course, but getting in the sauna, taking some supplements for autoimmune, and spending time de-stressing has really kept my body steady rather than the traditional ups and downs of "how am I going to feel today".
I go to the gym 3-5 times a week for most weeks, except for a couple of exceptions here and there. I have actually started making strong progress in the gym (at least for my body type). A few months ago I started seeing a personal trainer once a week at my gym, it wasn't vey expensive and I knew it would be a good way to keep myself motivated. Over the last two or so months the trainer has started to get rather impressed with my progress, last week he told me I was making better progress than a lot of the guys he's training around my age. Today I was pushing myself a little extra hard, and part way through the session he just looked at me and said "I think you've now surpassed everyone else. Its a close match between you and one other, but I think you are gaining quicker than my other clients at this point."
That made me excited to hear, because I have been going to the gym for a year and a half or so at this point, and I have made progress and gotten stronger. But now I am feeling well all the time and can count on planning ahead and feeling well for that time I have planned. I want to use part of it to go to the gym, I feel great afterwards and if anything I feel accomplished. Over the last four or so weeks I have really pushed going 4-5 times a week even if it is no longer than 30 minutes, so for him to notice the difference...it made me feel like I really was working hard.

The nice part about this trainer is he is my age and also built super skinny like myself, he is also one that would be considered a "slow gainer". So he notices the progress in a different light compared to the types of guys who can build muscle by looking at a rack of weights.

Kansas
I go back to my lyme doctor next month, its more for maintenance at this point. I could probably survive just fine without it. But due to my school schedule and whatnot, its easier to go ahead and take care of myself when it wont be a stress rather than wait for something to head south.
In total, that will be just two visits with my lyme doc this year. Next year the goal is to go once, maybe twice (again there is a lot to consider). Next year I will hopefully be going to graduate school, so depending on how I handle that will probably determine my outcome more than anything else. I think I will be alright, my spring semester of classes this previous semester was very rough. Very stressful for me, but I recovered and it was not so bad after it ended.
In the past it was hard for my body and mind to recover after a series of long stressful events. For me, chemistry class was a long stressful event.

Ongoing Symptoms
I would say Im pretty much symptom free. I can still feel the full moon sometimes, usually ill feel a lack of motivation and maybe even depression. I would say on and off depression is still my worst symptom. The severity is low but it is something that hangs on here and there, I will have a few weeks or months where life is good and its not really a problem. Then I will have a few weeks or months where it is a problem. Its usually tolerable to deal with, could certainly be worse. The lack of motivation and satisfaction is the worst for me.
Pain is pretty much gone 99% of the time, sleep is better, focus is better, mood is better (and more stable), my ability to handle stress is better, anxiety is 99% gone except for occasions (but at that it never matches what it has in the past), OCD is still around on occasion (but again nothing like it once was). Truthfully, Im doing very well and I have a lot to be thankful for.

Stress Reduction
In school, my most favorite teacher ever, taught use this last semester an amazing way of dealing with and dissolving stress. In the beginning of every class we allllll had to pull out a sheet of paper, date it, and just start writing everything on our mind. Good, bad, whatever.
Then after a minute or two, we stop then write things we are grateful for. Again just for a minute or two. Usually starting with the basics, food, a job, friends, a car, a safe home, etc. then moving on into more complicated or more specific things.
Then stop, and write another paragraph or so of whats on our mind. And go through that rotation a few times.
It made every day brighter, so I have tried my best to incorporate that into my weekly life, it was part of my daily life but I find it difficult to do the same tasks every single day. And I do not always need to decompress like that.
I highly recommend it!! Go try it, I know you're thinking about it. Say it with me, I am grateful for......

Kansas 2020

Last week I was back in Kansas! 

At this point this has become rather a routine, we check in and speak to everyone and talk for a while. Then at some point we go back and see the doctor. Our rental car this time is a bright orange Jeep Wrangler, which is exactly what my doctor drives except his isn't as bright of a... traffic cone orange.

Day 1

 The doctor went over all my many test results and overall was very impressed, I did not really lose any progress since I was last there seven months ago which is a very big deal. Only one thing was a concern on my blood work, my liver enzymes were elevated by a lot, he gave me a few things to take and in a month I will get those rechecked back at home. We could not figure out why my liver could have changed so much. He said my kidneys look perfect for the first time ever, he said for someone with chronic illness to have normal kidney results, is a big deal and its a sign my body is getting back to normal. When the kidneys do not have to over work to maintain baseline minimum, its a good sign!

My thyroid also looked great. No issues there.  After looking at everything he focused on my gut issues, my liver, and a few other things for the week. I had a few odd things out of my usual pattern show up on my blood work that we are going to try to figure out. Overall I am setup for great improvement, through the "grading system" that he has me use to track my symptoms and severity, I need my number to be 50 or lower. Last time it was 80 something, this time it was 68. He said this means I am getting closer to being done with coming to the clinic! The lower the number the better.

 

Day 2

Today the doctor talked to me more about my blood test results. He said due to the recent viral outbreak the lab has released some webinars for the doctors to watch on recognizing viral infections (as a whole), he gave me a list of things that are typically altered when one is sick with a virus. Then he told me the list of things that were off on my blood test, guess what they matched. I had the blood draw on the day I got sick with a virus last week, so he further confirmed that the odd things on my tests were probably due to a viral infection, even the liver enzymes. Considering I no longer have a viral infection, this is all good news.

He worked on inflammation, a fungal issue showing up, and some gut things to further remediate the issues with my body. As a whole he is still pretty happy with how my tests are turning out!

Day 3+4

Yesterday the doctor spent time checking out why my body had so much inflammation, he gave me something to take for inflammation and specifically inflammation in my gut. He's balanced out sensitivities towards mold and some other environmental pollutants that I could come into contact with. 

Today he mainly focused on my gut, for several months I had been eating a lot more and gaining weight. In the last month that has gone away and Im back to not eating except what I have to. He's really focusing on trying to fix that. He added in a few things for my gut, interestingly the stuff he gave me isn't necessarily digestion boosters like digestive enzymes. The supplements are for my gallbladder and for preventing my body from producing too much leptin (hunger suppressing hormone). So the eating issue appears to be partly a hormonal issue rather than a diet or a malfunction. Learn something new every day. 

He went over my updated test results for today, and for the most part my body is working better. The body systems he's trying to support and improve the function of, were reflected in the results-meaning treatment is working as planned.

He told me today, that we had to treat parasites for so long, there would be some gut problems to clean up after. Well the parasites are gone and have been gone, this is the cleanup of the aftermath. After that, he doesn't think there will be anything or much left wrong that I will need treated for!

Day 5

The final day was short and simple as usual, he did some more work for my gut and added another couple supplements. He adjusted my spine so I could be prepared for the flight home, and we socialized for a little bit talking about alternative medicine things as a whole. I like getting his perspective on things and seeing what his experience is with different supplements. Last year we took a family trip to Hawaii (sounds great right?) and the flight there (10hrs) completely wore me out for the whole time we were there and I didnt really enjoy it because I was running on empty the whole time. He suggested that I try a megadose of glutathione before going on a big trip and continue to take it during the trip. He said he does the same and he holds up well. 

So, for now I am on a whole new set of supplements! Making progress and creating positive changes. My body is thankfully (for the most part LOL) not what it used to be! Things are starting to work like they are supposed to and I am becoming more and more human. 

I have a few more things to write but for now, I think this covers the biggest changes!

Nine Years and Still Counting

Today Marks Year Nine

As the above says, today 1/26/20 marks my ninth year of battling Lyme disease. In the beginning I had no idea I had Lyme. I had broken my arm and then never felt well again, I felt this way, then worse and worse for several years before getting any idea as to what was truly wrong with me.
For my full story, see this post from years and years ago.

I look at the last nine years and I almost want to scream, every single year has been different in thousands of ways. Consistency has not been my forté at all for how I have felt with being ill or how I had to deal with the ever rolling stresses handed to me. The first year was the beginning of the stress, I thought I was just sick from a drug interaction or from the stress of breaking multiple bones. Then I got sicker and I thought something more had to be wrong.

Year six and seven were probably the worst of the worst. I discovered anxiety and severe OCD somewhere in that timeline, I learned what starving and not being able to eat meant. I discovered new fears and pains that I had no idea were possible.
I prayed a lot. I cried a lot. I complained many times over. I made it.

Year eight was a big changing point, I began exercising for the first time in my life and was able to really begin enjoying it! I began feeling peace and calmness again in my life, something that I felt was gone forever at one point. It felt as if my body had begun "waking up", my alertness began coming back and so did my energy. Consistency starting walking into my life and pain began walking out.

Looking back, I see several people who have come and gone from my life. Some I miss and some I hope have lost my number, and truthfully I do blame lyme and what it did to me for why I left some people behind and why some people left me in the dirt. Necessities breed ingenuity, I had a great need for "real" people in my life. People that just enjoy "fun" on a Friday night and nothing else at all, no longer had a place in my life. Some of these people could not handle how I "felt" all of the time, they did not appreciate how I had too many feelings and that none of these feelings were "fun".
And some of these people I no longer felt like being around because they are rather shallow. Lyme taught me a lot about looking deeper than skin deep and it taught me that what people don't say can be louder than what they do say. I learned to listen to the world going around instead of only hearing what was placed directly in my face, which is hard to explain.

Looking back I can also see how Lyme landed me my job, which I love so much. Lyme shaped my personality into a more caring spirit, I want to work with people who need help and need people to understand. Not just a 9-5 which serves no long term purpose.
I learned that living with a purpose and a meaning was capable of reshaping my entire outlook on life.

Nine years has taught me a lot, I pray that this is the year in which I can say Lyme no longer causes me illness. To be further specific, I pray that the lyme bacteria and the damage that has been done to my body, emotions, and spirit will no longer cause me disease. Year eight has taught me that my patience has begun paying off. I go to the gym all the time, since the beginning of December I have been to the gym on average 4x per week and I have gotten into my sauna 5x per week. These things have made me feel so satisfied and happy. I do not know if its because they are helping me so much, or if I am just that grateful that I can finally exercise on a consistent basis for the first time in my life.

I cant believe I have been sick nearly a decade, it is scary to think about how quickly all of it has burned past. I am grateful though that the last few years went by quickly, because they were nothing short of horrible. If I could never relieve that part of my life, that would be great.

I thank God for all of my progress. I have prayed that I will come out on the otherside healthier and happier than ever before, without trauma and damage. I think that one day this goal will be achieved.

Heres to another benchmark year in which changes and progress and growth will be embraced and welcomed :)

If It Breaks

Broken Things
Send us a big message. Its taken me a while to understand this. As I am working on a degree in psychology, I have been taught more and more on how to notice what is going on inside of myself so that I can better understand what is going on inside of someone else world. When something breaks, that "thing" sends a very broad yet specific message, "time to make a new choice".

Choices are hard, or at least they can be. Humans naturally fear the unknown, why? I haven't taken that class yet. Theres gotta be a reason though, Im sure of it.
Choices can bring fun new things, like choosing to buy something that has taken a while to save up for. Or taking a trip to somewhere that you have always wanted to go too.
Choosing to live in a new town, or even a new state, can be very scary. In that instance, there is a lot of unknown that has to be processed, maybe thats why people tend to live in a more stagnant life.

In my experience, and I have mentioned this many times before, people with a severe chronic illness have been put through some sort of major trauma that played part as a catalyst in their illness.
That is part of the reason I have chosen to earn a degree in psychology, to better understand myself and to better advocate for those who have been through more than they could handle. It can be hard to choose to move on from whatever the trauma was. Personally, I am in the "rebuilding" stage of lyme. I no longer have an active raging infection, it may not be 100% gone but it is no longer tearing my body apart. I have to repair the damage. Over the last few years my doctor has been working on my adrenals and hormones, those seem to being doing well according to my last test results.
My immune system is not leveled out yet, I have been rotating through having a high positive ANA to a negative ANA. ANA is an autoimmune test, it shows if the body is destroying its own tissue somewhere(as I understand it). In March this year my ANA was 1:160, which is a very high + test. In July it was negative, July I was also feeling the best with the least physical complaints. This month it tested at a 1:80, which is a high + but not as severe as the 1:160. Meaning it could be worse, but somewhere in my body I have damage occurring due to my own immune system.

I had to make a choice, I had to choose to take initiative and figure out what I needed to change in my life to push my body in the right direction. I decided to try some high doses of some supplements I had been taking earlier this year when my ANA was normal. I had to choose to realize (and not ignore) that the biggest problem I have is that I just dont handle stress well. I know I dont. A good friend of mine has been telling me about how I need to meditate to calm my mind and I need to do it frequently to keep my body in the right pattern. Have I done that yet? No. Do I know I need to? Yes. I do. I have been doing some deep breathing when I think about it and when I am in the sauna I try to relax and get the world out of my mind. I am pushing myself in the right direction, eventually Ill get there.

Having things "broken" with myself has taught me that choices are important. And ignoring a choice, is by default making a choice. I have learned to ask myself "if it breaks, does it heal?" , because the important things in life that truly matter can either heal or be fixed. Think about it. The most important thing in my life is my relationship with God, do I make mistakes? All the time, always will. I try my best but in the end I am human and will make mistakes. (Anyone who cant see that they make mistakes just needs a new mirror to see themselves in). People we care about in life, we hold close and go out of our way to make a priority in our lives. Our hobbies, its easy to pickup a hobby and make it whatever you want to be. My hobby is my old car, I have done all sorts of projects on it to make it "better" and continue to make plans for more projects on the car. I make it a priority in my life because I enjoy it.  If my car breaks, I fix it, not because I "can" but because its an opportunity for me to learn something new.
Reaching the end of the year, I have looked back on some projects and people in my life and thought about how they could have gone different. But in reality I know whatever was suppose to happen, did. Nothing "failed" because I didn't work hard enough or because I "did it wrong". I made choices to move on, because my heart was no longer in it. I have had a few friends who may have been a bit toxic in my life that I pushed away (on purpose) and I have thought to myself, was that the right thing? Sure I could have done some things a bit different but, I made choices. It wont be the last time I have to make some space between myself and others. I had to abandon one of my car projects and sell it on to the next owner, because my heart was no longer in it. That project had morphed into a pit, and that pit sucked all the fun out of it.

Now that the year is coming to an end I am trying to make choices on what I want to do with myself for the next coming year. This time next year I should be graduated with a degree in Psychology and a minor in sociology. I will be facing some big changes then! Good changes! But I know that I myself, need to be a little more prepared than I am for some of the things coming in the future.