A Little about Me....and Why I'm Here

 

I am a 41 year old gal living in Olympia, Washington - originally from a small wheat farming town called Odessa.

My husband and I moved to Olympia from Spokane 10 years ago for his job, and I really hope to get back to 

Eastern Washington again one day.  We have been married for almost 12 years and have a 5 year old

daughter.  I’m currently working for a non-profit builder association as their Director of Events, planning 

Home and Garden Shows, Tour of Homes, Auctions, Golf Tournaments etc.  – it’s a lot of fun!  But it's also very 

tough on my Lyme-ridden body.  

 

Here's why I decided to start this blog.   January of 2008 (just 5 days after I first met my hubby!) I had my

gallbladder removed because of gallstones.  A few months into recovery, I started experiencing excruciating and

 life-changing digestive symptoms, which later evolved into so many other debilitating body changes.  I blamed

everything on this surgery because for the most part, I was healthy until then!  I visited doctor after doctor and spent near $80,000 (at this point I’ve lost track of the number).  I endured procedure after procedure and test after test, was diagnosed with things like Gastroparesis (common in the elderly?!), IBS, acid reflux – the list goes on, but no western medicine treatments seemed to help and things were only getting worse.

 

In March 2012 I was lucky to have found an excellent naturopath in Redmond, WA who practiced kinesiology.  Little by little, we were able to alleviate my digestive symptoms!  But there was so much more – my body was under major attack – and she kept coming back to Lyme disease as a possibility.  Because of the expense and difficulty to treat, she ruled out nearly everything else first.  In March of 2014 she sent me to a Lyme Literate Doctor in Seattle, WA.  He ordered another Lyme test (this was my 3rd as the 1st came back negative, the 2nd inconclusive) and it came back VERY positive.  In fact, my current Lyme Doc says it’s 1 of only 3 other such positive results that she has seen with this bloodwork.  Not only do I have Lyme, but I have at least three other co-infections: babesia, bartonella and erlichia.

 

I was diagnosed with Lyme in April 2014 and was so happy to finally have an answer!!  I have no idea when I was bit or how long I have had the disease.  Little did I know how much harder my journey was about to get.  Through all of this, I have lost a job, had to stop nearly all activities and most importantly, have missed out on so much LIFE!  It saddens me every day how much this horrible disease has effected my world and my husband’s world.

 

I strongly believe that everything happens for a reason and that God is in control, but I find myself doubting this every single day.  I have a strong support system in my husband and my family, and have had a lot of support & encouragement from friends via social media lately that has really been uplifting.  But every day IS. SO. HARD.  There are so many people in this world suffering from this horrid epidemic and, worst of all, a huge controversy in the medical world - doctors and insurance companies that are doing all they can to cover up the seriousness of this disease.

 

I have several goals for this blog:

1. I WANT THE WORLD TO BE AWARE!  Like I mentioned above, insurance companies are covering this up because it’s more of a widespread epidemic than HIV!  Some doctors know the truth, but are afraid to treat because they have the chance of losing their license.   The medical world tells us that this is a hard to get, easy to treat illness.  While it may be true that 2 weeks of antibiotics could treat the disease if you catch it right away, most cases are not diagnosed properly for years!!!  Lyme Disease is known as the ”great imitator” because it mimics so many other diseases (MS, Parkinsons, ALS, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Meningitis – the list goes up to 300!!!)  And as I experienced myself, tests can come back as false negatives.  For these reasons, most people end up with chronic Lyme because they were not diagnosed right away.  There are 300,000 new Lyme patients diagnosed every year, but imagine what that number would be if people were being properly diagnosed!

 

2.  I WANT TO REACH OTHERS SUFFERING WITH LYME.  Despite my support system, I often feel very alone in this disease.  As the saying goes, “You Don’t Get It, Until You Get It”.  I’ve gotten very good at hiding my pain at work and the few times I’m “okay” enough to go out on social outings.  People are always commenting on how great I look, how they would never know I was this sick.  While I appreciate those comments (I mean, who doesn’t want to look good to the world, right?) it’s so disheartening because they have NO IDEA what I feel like on the inside.  The pictures I post on Facebook are the rare days where I feel okay, or of that “fake” smile I’ve gotten so good at posing.  After all, I don’t know about you, but I’m surely not going to post pictures of me lying on the couch in pain and tears!  A few years ago I watched the documentary “Under Our Skin” and I balled like a baby the entire time.  I didn’t realize how much I had longed for someone to really understand what I was going through – and to see that others were experiencing the same things was, for lack of a better word, comforting.  It makes me so sad to know that there are so many people in this world going through what I’m going through, but if I could touch just ONE person with my words, my writing efforts will be worth it!