Grief

I spent most of yesterday crying. One of those weird crying jags where even as you go about your business, the tears continue to fall. I called DR's office and talked to his nurse and then DR called me back. Mostly it was just a need for reassurance on my part. This was not merely my normal depression which has dogged me most of my life. That's another old friend with a shape and form I recognize. This was grief. Like someone had shot my dog or something. In a sobbing conversation with a friend (and fellow Lyme sufferer) that I said "I feel like all the ground I've gained in fifteen years, I've lost in two months"

We talked about how public I want to be about how badly I'm doing. How I'm contemplating asking DR for a handicapped parking pass. How I've been using my ski pole like a cane. How being disabled sucks

Then my husband comes home and we suddenly remember we were supposed to meet with my son's teacher for a conference at lunchtime today. Actually he remembers--I never would have. He called the school and set up another appointment while I sat on the bed and sobbed. Feeling useless and a bad mom. I spent the rest of the day napping and consuming my favorite forms of brain candy--horror movies and fantasy books.

DR says I'm experiencing a Jarisch Herxheimer reaction, also known more recently as immunopathology. In a nutshell, its what happens when the bugs start dying in amounts too large for your immune system to clean up quickly. Their rotting microbial corpses lay around waiting for the sanitation workers to come pick them up. Your body has to gear up and create these cells. In order that you don't spend your energy doing anything else, you feel shitty and want nothing else other to go to bed. Modern medicine has many chemicals in its pharmacopia that could be used to make me feel better--steroids for instance. But, they'd also stop my immune system from killing the bugs.

So it goes.