Got lyme?

I’m in one of those moods right now where little things that shouldn’t annoy me are getting to me, I wish I had gone to bed earlier but couldn’t because I left packing to the last minute, my back and upper neck are achy, and I’m feeling unexplainedly overwhelmed.

So I thought I’d start writing here to get my mind off of things and turn my attention towards what’s been planned for the upcoming week, which overall I’m grateful for.

Something I haven’t yet addressed on this blog is the chronic health problems I’ve been having since the fall of 2014. I plan on writing the backstory to that and my journey since then, but long story short (for now) is that I had a bad flu-like illness from which I seem to have sustained cognitive issues (eg. with verbal fluency, memory issues, reasoning abilities, slowed thoughts) and have since experienced a number of other more minor complaints that have cropped up here and there. This led to seeing a number of doctors here in Canada, and eventually to finding Dr. Kaufman at the Open Medicine Institute last May. We never seemed to completely get to the bottom of things, but since I seemed to enter a recovery period shortly after my initial visit to him, we left things alone….until now that is. This time around I’m aiming to get extensive testing done for tickborne illness (lyme, babesia, bartonella, ehrlichia, anaplasma) as the “preliminary” testing we had done last time around seemed to indicate something was amiss in that direction. I don’t want to do too much speculation at this point (maybe that won’t end up being the diagnosis we pursue anyway?); all I can really say is that I’m fed up with feeling at the mercy of my health and want to finally nip this thing in the butt.

Back to the gratitude component: this trip to Mountain View in California, especially the testing, is going to cost $$$. I’m grateful to have my mom for providing me with the financial assistance to make this trip, and to my older brother who will be accompanying me down for support. I know many others aren’t as lucky to have that. It’s my hope though that writing about this journey and getting my story out there will be of benefit of others who are in a similar place.

A rainbow after a recent storm (yes, caught at a strange angle from my car as I was pulled over on the side of the road). Good omens, perhaps?