Day 5

I'm over the half way mark of this seven day challenge and I'm quite convinced that it has almost been healthy for me, like a public journal, and maybe I'll be blogging way more often after this week is done. Today, in the grand scheme of things, has been a very good day. I woke up early to witness my PCP or personal care physician overreact about my fingers that turned out to be not broken, just slightly sprained. Then I received a call that I was written on the work schedule for 10-6 when I was told 2-8. So I rushed around with my new shiny finger splints and flew off to work. The socialization I get working at Gunstock is refreshing. Hundreds of people come and go, and many regulars return to see my smiling face and sometimes even tip me a dollar or two! It surprises me how many people coming and going look familiar to me, but my brain just blocks out the information I need to remember their name or where I remember them from. I still smile and wave and hope for a release of memories to save me from embarrassment.

Today I realized there is a lot of pressure on me. I knew this all along, the past couple weeks with my life flowing like an icy river, to the hours in the day that change like the wind. Gunstock doesn't have winter forever, and soon I will be jobless. I'll have to get a summer job to pay for insurance and save money for a vehicle for myself and maybe even emergency savings. I need to catch up on school, maybe reduce the amount of current shifts I'm taking so I can survive health-wise. There are too many things on my mind that are stressing me, and I would never be able to remember all of them at once, but there's more to my life than meets the eyes.

Day 4

Four is not my lucky number I guess. Today has been a terrible day. My fingers are taped to Popsicle sticks, and  work was painfully busy. I was in so much pain all day that it wore me down to the bone. I couldn't fight off the cold temperature when I stepped outside to walk to my car, and I just wanted to sleep the entire drive home. I'm suffering such a bad spout of depression right now. I don't feel this way all the time, and sometimes I want to cry but can just keep working through it, like when I working ski check and have something else to think about or when I'm at CAP and vulnerability is not an option. I can't be an emotional mess in this world. I have things to get done. But right now I'm officially the dictionary definition of mess. It's so hard to sit here with tears streaming down my face and think of how I'm supposed to describe what I feel like right now, what's going through my mind right now. I really don't think I can, or that I should have to. I'm highly discouraged, and my body has run out of available energy to draw from for optimism. We all reach this point, now it's my time to fight through it and overcome it with the amazing friends I have.

Day 3

I'm so tired my eyes are burning and my head is aching all over. But before I go to bed after a long day I must do a small day 3 post to continue on my 7 day challenge! This week is Massachusetts school vacation week so Gunstock will be bustling with vacationers getting in their skiing and snowboarding time. I work 5 days this week, and hope I'll get some time to breath in between the rush. I have schoolwork to do but no brain power to get going with, and I have fallen back on the job of taking care of myself. I realized tonight that I am out of pro-biotics which usually causes yeast problems, Melatonin which helps me sleep, and b-12 for energy. I really need to find time to stop at the health food store! I tried a new church this morning, and got to visit my miniature horse. While I was in the paddock getting Miracle, another horse started kicking and caught my hand in a few good whacks. My middle finger and ring finger on my left hand are all torn up and I believe sprained. The fun never ends for me! Now I have to suck it up and go lift baskets and bags all day tomorrow. Mike was with me for the day too. I feel like outer support systems do try to understand, but us chronically ill people give them a harder time then we think. I wish I could go back to the gentle soul I was before Lyme where I had no worries and just smiles and optimism. Maybe I'll feel that again some day in the future!

Day 2

Today was a busy out straight day. Like most of my days, I didn't have time to take my medicine, pack a gluten free lunch and dinner, get sleep and still eat a healthy breakfast, or even take a couple minutes to close my eyes and think. I drove my parents around Laconia, running a few errands and attending half of the Lyme 411 Support Group meeting. At the meeting I met a fellow young girl with Lyme and smell sensibilities. I did not realize how sensitive people can be to scents like perfumes and cleaning solutions. It's another invisible symptom of Lyme Disease that many don't care to recognize. I rushed my parents back home and sped to work, not even enough time to fill my water bottle so I'd stay hydrated. I arrived late, and still all the handicap parking was full so I had to forget the placard that I still have until the end of this month and park a mile out, practically running to clock in. Then I made my way to the basket room where I work half the time and told myself I wasn't hungry. After all I was late, there was a line, and I didn't have time to eat even if I went to get the food. So I jumped right in, answering phone calls, collecting bags, logging lost items, and completely spacing the fact that I forgot my sneakers in the car. After two hours I was hungry and thirsty, beginning the stages of being dizzy and lightheaded. Four hours in my entire back and down my legs hurt from the decorative boots I was wearing and my head screamed at me to just sit down. Five hours in I splurged on a cheeseburger and some chocolate pudding, shutting my head up and killing my stomach at the same time. I left work after six hours of strategically catching as much sitting time as I could and ignoring the elbow and knee pain. A member of security drove me to the back parking lot to retrieve my car and I made my way home. I just finished off that pudding and it was very good, though I know tomorrow I will wake up with the same familiar headache and lots of abdominal pain. I'll probably toss and turn tonight and need to drink a glass of magnesium tomorrow just to make it through the next 24 hours, but I'll survive. I just can't wait to put on some comfy clothes, and set my alarm for 8 am. I can't believe I still have to brave the shower either tonight or tomorrow. Its a regular activity for many but its an hour and a half of wrapping my arm in plastic wrap and medical tape and getting help to scrub my hair since I can't bend my elbows or get my Picc line(IV) wet. I end up getting out of the steamy heat and feeling like collapsing because of the nausea and fatigue it creates. Lyme doesn't like heat, and it makes you feel like a vegetable when you spend too much time in it. Thankfully my mother is there to help me and I'll get out alive no matter how questionable I feel half way through the process. The hardest part now is to figure out whether to take it after such a long day when all I want to do is sleep or beginning tomorrow which might drain my day's energy. I've gotten up to take showers in the middle of the night because of this reason, then I get a little rest and I still get more before the next day. For tonight I'm just going to get ready for bed and embrace the opportunity for that free clean feeling tomorrow. Goodnight world.

Day 1

Today is the first day of my seven day challenge to post daily on my blog about the events of my life.

The past few days I have been suffering a bad head cold on top of the Lyme symptoms. It kept me in bed for two days, making me miss Civil Air Patrol last night, and I woke up this morning still fighting the stuffy nose, sore throat, headache, slight fever, and fatigue. My eyes burn and are watery sometimes, and my nose actually hurts bad enough to question if its broken sometimes. I know that may sound dramatic, but the combination of the burning, stinging, and sinus pressure is brutal. I woke early and rushed myself to work for 8:30 AM. That means I had to wake my insomniac self at 7:15 this morning, with only 8 hours of sleep where my body usually needs 10-11 hours to have a healthy rest. I worked alone for two hours while Gunstock bustled with middle school students on a field trip and early vacationers from Massachusetts, and then my help finally came in. At that point I was beyond caring if the cold was contagious, because I was tired, sweating, in pain, and dehydrated. I splurged at lunch with a brownie and knowing that was going to hurt my stomach ignored the gluten and dairy. Leaving work early at 2, I jumped in the car, rolled the window down in the almost spring weather, and navigated my way to UNH where I am blogging right now while waiting for my brother and boyfriend to return from a meeting. If I felt well enough I'd use this time to take a run, but I don't know my way around this campus and frankly I'd rather soak up any time sleeping I can. My whole body hurts, and feels bruised. I know my head is mad at me for not staying hydrated enough and pushing myself physically and mentally. I'm so used to the pain that I just keep pushing through it. Most people with Lyme or other chronic conditions do the same thing, smiling and keeping busy to sidetrack themselves from the crushing hurt all over. When one body part hurts long enough they all start hurting and become hypersensitive. That's why even a poke or pat on the back can seem like a brutal attack.

Overall my optimism is high today. I have my ups and downs, days where I would rather disappear and days where I know I have to keep going for the family and friends who love me. Today I feel loved. There's people I don't even know praying for me, and though it's hard to imagine I recognize that today. I want to be an example to other teen girl's who are on the brink of hopelessness. Being depressed, being sad, being frustrated and disappointed, that's okay. We all have those days no matter who we are. It doesn't mean you are weak. Take your day or your week to be upset. Cry, yell, lock yourself away from the world, eat that chocolate and listen to those sappy songs. Sleep in the middle of the day and stay up sobbing your heart story into your journal at night. That's just how your body is handling it's stress, and we all need to relieve that stress in our own way. Have you had your moment? Okay, now pick up the pieces, apologize to your friends and family, put away the junk food, change the playlist on your ipod, and get your life back together. You have to be strong because we have no choice, and other people like myself need an example, we need a strong role model. We'll all get through this. Together.

7 Day Challenge

For the next seven days, starting tomorrow, I have decided to post about the days events in hopes to open the eyes of many people into what my current life consists of. People think they know me, they think the smile and strength, the passive personality, the understanding, that it's all natural to me. Having a chronic illness changes your perspective of life, matures you a bit, and brings you to a point of many different skills than ever imagined. However, no healthy person can understand the courage it takes to face each day, keep smiling, and work through problems that I don't even have the energy to comprehend. I hope quite a few people, fellow lyme advocates and sufferers, friends, even family will check in to catch a 15 minute glimpse of what the true me is going through. I'm ready to expose the bare truth and open eyes and hearts up to the unknown.

Update: February 16

My world has been spinning around me. I think sometimes people tend to run before they walk. I took a couple inches of slack, wrapped it around my neck, and ran with it but when it ran out I managed to strangle myself. Now I'm in the back fall stage. The ground is disintegrating from beneath my feet faster than I can run. I've pushed myself so much with the health and strength I had, picking up a job, pushing through schoolwork, getting my license, hanging with friends, forgetting my medicine, splurging from my diet, starting to run again, staying up late, and plain neglecting myself, that now I've run out of that slack and I'm disappearing back into reality. The joint pain is killer, I have headaches daily again, I can't bring myself to wrap my brain around my classes currently, my job takes all my energy left, and I have such a weak immune system from beating myself up that I'm sick with a cold that feels like the end of the world. The mood swings have transitioned to an hourly event, and I find myself fighting anxiety attacks, heart palpitations, and wild depression spells. I'm trying to keep my head above water but I'm so concentrated on just making it through the next breath of air, that I have forgotten how to be patient and strong.