The last time I blogged I had just begun medicine after my four week vacation. A little about my antibiotic treatment: it is a three level approach. The first level of medicine is aimed at the blood, the second is the tissues, and lastly is the cyst form. The medicine goes in order, the first level tries to kill the lyme in my blood, the spirochetes that are left go and hide in the tissues which brings the second antibiotic into play. The second med is aimed at the tissues, the remaining spirochete goes into cyst form with a biofilm around it protecting it from the first two antibiotics which is where the third and final antibiotic comes into play. Therefore killing the lyme involves a three prong attack.
After my medicine holiday I began with the first level of antibiotics, after a successful week on them we introduced the second level of antibiotics at half dose. A week later we upped that to full dose and thus began the memory problems. The first day on the full dose of the second antibiotic my memory problems began coming back in full swing. I kept taking the medicine to see if the loss of memory would be followed by dizziness, hearing loss, eyesight loss, and difficulty breathing or if it was a random memory loss. Thus far every time my head stuff reappears it begins with memory followed by dizziness, difficulty breathing and so forth. So after a couple days of memory problems the dizziness set in and we decided to stop taking the second level of medication but remain on the first stage of medicine.
This has proven to be a good idea, it has been a week now since I got off the second level of medicine and my memory problems are all cleared up. Now we are praying for wisdom in when and how to start up the second level again. We are thinking of staying at a half dose for two weeks instead of one to see how that works but for now I am focusing on detoxing, which is quite a task!
So this last week has been pretty good, off of that second level of medicine I feel once again like a 'fake lyme patient' and I am trying to live that up. :) Although on wednesday I woke up with a nasty head cold so the later part of the week I have been lying low and getting more sleep. I really just have a head cold but it makes it hard when so much of my body is out of order, a head cold can take me out of business. Yet again I see the Lords perfect timing; I am on my UNI Thanksgiving break, my teachers decided to give my program a two week break instead of the usual UNI one week off, believe me, none of us complained! So wednesday began the trend of my break days with things that are easy to cancel or miss so I didn't miss any class and I didn't get behind in any homework! I am constantly in awe of how perfect the Lords timing is!
In March when I was diagnosed with lyme disease I thought that life could only go up from there. To a point I was right; I found out my thoughts were correct, lyme if not caught and treated will end up taking the persons life and I can honestly tell you I knew when I was sick that it was killing me. I knew I didn't have very much longer to figure out what was wrong and after six years I didn't think we would figure it out at all. If I would not have been diagnosed and treated I honestly think I would have lived maybe two to three more years. I was going downhill very fast. I choose not to tell many people my thoughts on this because I didn't want people to worry, I knew the Lord was faithful and I didn't want anyone to fall to sin due to my pain. But now that I am walking uphill once again I felt like sharing the reality of where I was and how far the Lord has brought me.
This life is so temporary, I knew that then and I know that now. The Lord has chosen to keep me on earth longer than I had thought and for that I am grateful. I came to an understanding of something the other day; though all of the ups and downs of treatment, of medicine vacations and not knowing if this treatment will work or if I will ever be better I was reminded by the Lord that it honestly doesn't matter.
I had prepared myself for death but I wasn't prepared to live with pain forever. I had so many questions running through my head...What if I am sick for the rest of my life? What if I am on antibiotics for the rest of my life? This a a common theme among lyme patients, it could happen to me. What if my lyme doesn't go into remission? What if I have children and they get lyme from me? There are so many what if's that can haunt my mind. But these thoughts do absolutely nothing.
So what if I change my what if's? What if I trust the Lord? And trust is what I have decided to do. I can honestly with a pure heart tell you that my hope is not in healing, or ever being off of antibiotics, or having healthy children. My hope is now and will forever be in Jesus Christ. I can live the rest of my life in pain and on medicine because I know that this is temporary. One day I will have relief from lyme and I am so content if that day turns out to be heaven. What's seventy years compared to eternity? I know the Lord is my strength and if I am asked to live with this, He will see me through.
My church (The Downtown Church) had a women's coffeehouse last night and it was wonderful! The theme of the evening was satisfaction and the verse of the night was...
Satisfy us in the morning with Your faithful love so that we may shout with joy and be glad all our days. ~Psalm 90:14
No matter where I am, or the pain I am in I can be satisfied and rejoice because of who Jesus Christ is. His love and mercy are unconditional, it covers every situation I could ever be in and more. I have no reason to be unsatisfied, I have no reason to worry because God is still God. He has not left His throne, He is still my Father and I am still in His arms.
Prayer Requests:
*That I would daily choose to be satisfied and rejoice in the Lord
*Clarity and wisdom when/how to start the medicine again
*Appointment on tuesday with my lyme doctor; wisdom where/what to change if anything in my treatment, and wisdom in questions to ask
*Job hunting; I am looking for a job I can physically do. I work at a daycare nowcon fridays for three hours and it's getting harder and harder to handle 24 one year olds. So I will be looking for a job I can do for when classes are out in four weeks. If you have any ideas let me know!
