Recovering from Surgery

Hey everyone!
I got my stitches out Tuesday, exactly 4 days ago. I was told I was a tough cookie, had high pain tolerance, and healed nice and fast! I'm still healing of course, but the stitches being out is better. The only thing is she warned me that usually she only takes a few out, and I need to be careful not to over-do it the next week so that I don't rip it back open :-0 so I'm sincerely taking it easy.its hard though when I've spent so much time inside! Wednesday I was not going to go to youth group, but the thing was, it was my 15th day not getting out (other than the doc.s) and I needed to relieve some of my cabin fever...... I miss the horses and riding, and skiing, and being outside in the fresh air and sun! I went to youth group and had a warm welcome! It was awesome! Thursday I was going to go to Concord, NH because a bill was being proposed to protect NH MD's from treating Lyme Disease. I wanted to go so bad but snow kept my ride home and therefore I was stranded with no ride and watching it on the news, seeing all the familiar faces of my NH lyme buddies on New England News! I was sure upset.... But god kept me home for a reason, because I'm glad i didn't over-do it! Friday I stayed home, and hung out. i watched Castaway, what a sad but interesting movie. I made up my own ending to it, so the real ending didn't appear as sad and depressing, but I won't spoil it for anyone... hehe.... Now today is Saturday and I'm missing my mini horse Miracle and wanting to see her so bad, so I'm going to try to convince my mom to take me down to see her for a little while. I'll have to take it very easy though.... But oh, it will feel so wonderful to get out and underneath the blue sky, and feel the cool weather touch me cheeks! Just breathing in the sunshine and fresh air will be a relief! Not including the smell of the barn, and touc of the horses! It's true, horses have healing elements! :-D

New Med.s

Hey everybody, stopping in to give a new update! Started the beginning of this year with a new protocol for my Lyme treatment, and I actually for the first time in 2 1/2 years either feel some side effects or herxing from these three new Antibiotics. I am on Plaquenil, Biaxin, and Amoxycillin. I have been on Biaxin and Amoxy in the past by themselves, and then was on Bactrim and Biaxin together for a little while, but Plaquenil is new, and together with the other two! I've been dealing with lots of nausea, stomach pain, sleepless nights, headaches, neck tension, some tingling and numbness in my fingers and feet, and some surface tingling on my stomach. I've also been edgy and have no concentration at all! This is all new stuff, one night I was up vomiting all night, another night I was up nauseas all night, and many nights I've gone to bed nauseas, or woke in the middle of the night nauseas for a bit. I have experienced some vertigo and dizziness. I'm still taking Carafate for the Gastric ulcer, going to see my GI MD next week.... She is not going to be happy now that i'm on THREE abx.... oh well, got to do what you have to do in order to treat this crumby Lyme Disease.

Pilonidal Cyst

Hey everyone, again...... Well Wednesday the 13th I went in for surgery. For months I have had issues with a Pilonidal Cyst. Basically, the Pilonidal glands are right above and along the tailbone. Some people have issues with these glands as they get older and grow, and the glands may become blocked and create a cyst. The cyst and glands are very painful if this happens, so with my horseback riding and different activities the only result was to remove the problem so that it won't reoccur later on. They went in, with about a 3 inch incision, and scraped out the cyst and glands. This has left me with a very painful cut, with 8 stitches, to tend to as it heals over the course of a month. Its the 6th day after the surgery right now. The 1st day afterward I got really sick from the pain med.s! The 2nd day was a little better but sore, I was finally allowed to shower and run some hot water over it. The 3rd day was yet again a little better and I was on my side the entire day. The 4th day was yet again a little better, but that night I was up throwing up pain medications. The 5th day I was tired but able to sit upright on a soft pillow, and today I am much better. I've been up walking around and sitting on a pillow all day, so its been a good and fast recovery so far! The stitches look good and are only sore. I will be able to move some more in a week or two. The surgery went well, and they did not find any infection or anything. I am on 3 antibiotics for the Lyme Disease, so the possibility of getting an infection there now is extremely slim, I should heal nice and steady!

Hiccups

One thing I've noticed over the course of my Lyme Disease sufferings, is that I will suddenly get an urgent and curious case of the hiccups every now and then. I'll go for a week or less where I get hiccups MANY times a day that will last what feels like forever, and range in severity (these weeks come often spread very far apart, up to 5 weeks apart from each other). They are very annoying and pesky, and everyone has different ways to relieve such spasms. I call it a spasm (because I know there are wide varieties of spasms caused by Lyme Disease), but really as much as I'd like to think that it's a spasm of the diaphragm (or the muscle right beneath the lungs that flexes to cause breathing) it is a much more uncontrollable and widespread motion. I was very curious about this subject, so I did some research which led me to a very interesting and informational article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-causes-hiccups
This article speaks of what causes hiccups, what is a hiccup, and gives a very detailed and helpful idea on the layout of the hiccup. Hope it helps you some!