I believe.

Word of the day: Determination

Believe it.

 

Much love,

molly

Time to kick some Babesia butt!

It’s November. Eleven months into my treatment, and tonight I’m simply staring at my handful of pills, tablets, and capsules. I’ve become accustomed to this ritual. And yet tonight feels different. I don’t know what I’m expecting to happen. But I’ve got that daunted, overwhelmed feeling.

I’d forgotten this feeling. For me it’s the mark of starting new treatments, new antibiotics. It’s a new phase of treatment, and it’s scary.

I had an appointment with my LLMD yesterday. My mom had her 1st official Lyme appointment before me, and then it was my turn. She has finally decided to go ahead and treat her Lyme, slowly but surely. She’s starting with several herbals from the Cowden protocol. {I think!} She’s working on a schedule to keep it all straight, and I’m trying to help as much as I can. Having two Lyme brains working on this has got to be better than one, right? Too bad she’s not blogging about it!

So, my appointment was next. I was feeling great going in. I was expectantly waiting to hear her thoughts on my treatment after going to the ILADS conference. Her plan was to wait until afterwards to begin treating my Babesia and hopefully gain some new information and insight. And, boy, are we going to treat it! She was ready with a plan of attack.

Just as a reminder – Babesia is a common tick-borne co-infection. It functions as a malaria-like infection that thrives in the red blood cells. I received a positive Babesia test result a few months ago, but haven’t talked much about it on here since I wasn’t actively treating it yet.

I’ve been on a very low dose of only one antibiotic since June, Azithromycin. My new treatment is bumping that up to a normal dosage, and adding in two more new antibiotics to target the Babesia. Yesterday I began taking Bactrim, and today I’ll begin the infamous yellow liquid, Mepron.

In addition to these antibiotics, I’m still taking the herbal microbial Cumanda which is targeting the Lyme, Babesia, and my 1st co-infection, Bartonella.

I’m scared of this. I don’t know how I’ll react. How much sicker will I get before I see some more improvement? How long will I be on these medications? Will I be able to finish my semester of school? But, no matter the answer to those questions – I’m ready for it. I’m ready to start this new phase. The sooner I do, the sooner I can get better. It’s time to kick some Babesia butt!

Tonight I’ve nervously taken my 2nd dose of Bactrim. I say nervously because we’re afraid I’m already having some kind of reaction to it. About 6 pm tonight I was almost doubled over in the grocery store with stomach and abdominal pain. It has calmed down for now, and I’d love to not be woken up by it!

I’m crossing my fingers, saying a prayer, and setting some positive intensions.

I’ll be back later this morning with a Mepron post! {Cough-cough-GAG!}

 

Peace and healing, molly

Can you help me?

Hello, all! You have been such a wonderful support system over the course of the year. So I, of course, find myself turning to you with a request.

I’ve recently begun another blog. This time it’s for school. It’s called Peaced Together and is exploring the overall topic of peace in our lives.

Can you help me? I’m looking for some comments sharing your opinion of what peace is. We all have a different perspective, opinion, and definition peace. I’m gathering them for my project. I’ve created an intro to peace video to get your thoughts churning. You can find the link to it here – http://wp.me/pFToy-M.

Please, take a few minutes and explore my site. I’m having so much fun creating it. Peace is a passion of mine, and I know that this is fuel in my life for the healing I need.

I took this photo yesterday at the doctor’s office. {You can find it when you’re exploring Peaced Together by finding the category Peaced Together with a Button.} It spoke to me! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. The receptionist is used to my my quirkiness – she was only slightly confused as to what it was I was doing!

Thank you so very much.

Peace and healing, molly

My glass is still half-full

Oh my. I may have escaped La La Land – for now. It was a tough day today. I felt a complete disconnect from my mind and my body. So strange, especially after having a great craniosacral appointment this afternoon. Anyhow, let’s hope this breakthrough can carry on until tomorrow! I could use a day with mental clarity. It helps to be able to think through the fogginess every few days. I was just given an extension on two of my hardest classes {I love my teachers, have I said that?}, but I still have a lot to do and I’m starting to falter. One step forward and two back.

Same old story.

But, I’ve realized I’ve had some improvements lately! Yes! I love sharing those. Remember I said in my last post that I had some treatment updates? If not, it’s ok, I had to go back and re-read my post before I did. But, I do!

First, I’ve finally been cleared to begin taking Nattokinase. You might have heard some chatter about this supplement before. I know I have. As far as my understanding goes, it will break up the fibrin clots in my body so that the antibiotics can get to the newly exposed bacteria.  Sounds good, right? This enzyme has also been talked about in conjunction with the Lyme “biofilm”. I’m not going to touch on this only because I haven’t done the research on it. I really know nothing about it. But, if it helps with that – awesome! No complaints here. My LLMD suggested Nattokinase as an option way back in March, or so, but we couldn’t order it right away. Turns out that by the time we had received it in the mail I was advised against taking it. That was during my ICP crisis, and they didn’t want to chance any bleeding into my eyes. Nattokinase does act as a blood thinner.

Secondly, I’m excited to be adding Turmeric to my daily arsenal of supplements. In very high doses, this herb has been found to reduce inflammation and pain in the body. I’m all for pain relief these days. My pain has been flaring up more than I expected this fall. It’s been bad. So I started 900 mg of Turmeric three times a day last week. By today I realized that my pain level was down to a 6 when I went into craniosacral this afternoon! {My pain levels have been around 8 & 9 consistently this fall}. Amazing! Let’s see if this is a good fit for me. I really, really hope so.

These pills are HORSE pills though. I mean it. I measured! It’s practically an inch long, no joke. I have photographic evidence! Sorry for the blurry cell phone picture, my camera died this afternoon. But look! Sad thing is that I don’t even feel it going down. 

 

And last but not least, another supplement has been added to my polka dotted bag o’ meds. I’m now taking 5-HTP each night to help me regulate my sleep cycle again. It has been shown to increase serotonin levels. Over the past few weeks my sleep has been fit-full. I would wake up exhausted and feel groggy for hours. I realized yesterday that it must be helping, because I’ve been so tired at night that I’ve been falling asleep before doing any reading. I never do that! I’m not only just falling asleep, but I’m staying asleep all night. A full night’s sleep – imagine! Oh it feels good.

I can’t wait to go back to my LLMD in a few weeks with all of these new realizations! Progress feels so good, even if I’m still pushing my way towards the end of a very, very long herx. I’m also waiting to hear what news my LLMD has brought back from the ILADS conference over last weekend. Hopefully some new ideas for my treatment plan.

I had a Lyme co-infection test near the end of the summer and it came back with slightly positive Babesia result. So my running infection tally is now Lyme, Bartonella, and Babesia. Bartonella and Babesia are common tick-borne infections often found aside Lyme disease.

So, some good news, some bad.

For now I’m still thinking of that glass as half full.

Peace and healing, molly

I never could read a map

ParentsPstcrd_081509.jpg, originally uploaded by Pedestrian Typography.

I saw this today, and it hit a cord with me. This has got to be the road-map for Lyme treatment, no? I mean… we start out “here” and end up “there” after so many bumps, curves, twists and turns that we come out not knowing which way is up but so glad that we made the journey. Or, at least, I assume that’s how we’ve got to come out of this crazy trip.

This makes me smile. And then heave a huge sigh. But, at least according to this map there is an end destination for us all. That’s all I need to know, really. I’ll take it one day at a time, knowing that there is, indeed, an end.

My wish for you

FEEL GOOD, originally uploaded by Cordelia Roberts.

If only I could send all my Lyme friends a Get Well card. Or a "Smile, tomorrow is a new day." card. Or maybe a "Cheer up, I’m thinking of you!" card. This will have to do for today. My wish for you – Feel Good!