Riding Shotgun

"If you're going through hell, keep on moving, face that fire, walk right through it, you might get out before the devil even knows your there"- Rodney Atkins

While it is 10 pm and I should be sleeping my brain is in overdrive and I just took a bunch of pills so I need to be up for a little bit. What a perfect time for an update. I'm done saying that this will be a quick update. I think you know by now, they never are. I could go on forever it seems. Now, where to begin...

I'll start by letting you know that I got a 30 day extension at work. At the end of the 30 days I have to go through the whole doctors note routine again and we will go from there. Options are really slim as far as work goes. The bottom line is my "recovery" is not cooperating with the City's time line. For any one who knows about this disease that comes as no surprise. When does Lyme ever cooperate? Maybe never. Regardless, I am blessed to have another 30 days and I am really letting God take control. I am feeling more and more comfortable with the fact that I am giving up control. I'm letting Jesus take the wheel and as much as I like to drive, it's not so bad riding shotgun on this road trip. I think I am learning to sit back and relax.

Completely surprised but my sauna came a few weeks ago just like they said. After hearing some nightmare stories from some friends I wasn't convinced it could be here in less than week from when it was ordered but sure enough it was. Because I was finishing up my last week of antibiotics before my 2 month break I wasn't the first one to use it. That was ok I was just so excited to have it. My husband got the job of putting it together. It actually was a fairly quick process  and with in just a few hours of it being delivered my husband climbed in and started to sweat. Now he has never used one and I had a feeling he was going to love it. I was right. I almost wonder if he loves the sauna more than me. Just kidding. Can I just say though, regardless of your health, if you can ever afford to buy one do it. The health benefits alone are worth it. It is just relaxing and makes you feel good, well unless you are killing bugs like me then sometimes not so good but I just highly recommend you look into them. I don't think you will regret it. As a side note the weight loss part is great, my husband is dropping pounds and loving it. So since stopping the antibiotics, starting the new medicine, and using the sauna I must admit it has been a little rougher than I thought. It is so hard to tell what is really going on. I have been really sick to my stomach the past few days and I am almost sure that that is the new medicine. Some of the other symptoms though are hard to tell. Is it a herx because the heat from the sauna is killing bugs, is it just part of detoxing, is it a relapse from no abx. I am not looking forward to starting the abx up again. I'm really scared of what type of herx I might have. There is not much more I can go through at home before I am sure I would end up in the ER. As any lyme person will tell you, you want to avoid that at all costs. It's usually not worth it. On the other hand though, if you think you are dying what choice do you have? I am not going to worry about and if I'm truly letting Jesus take the wheel, that means I'm letting Him drive down that road too.

Speaking of symptoms and herxing the heart issues have been fairly steady. Nothing super crazy but fairly consistent and enough to drive me nuts. I did an echo last week which was normal. (No surprise there) I did the stress test on the treadmill today. That test kicked my but and I had to come home and go to sleep. I did better than some of my other tests so that is a plus. However, in my book it was still an epic fail. I managed to get my heart rate up to 190 in about 7 minutes. The cardiologist said I did fine. I exceeded my maximum heart rate by a little doing moderate exercise. Not bad. Not bad? I'm WALKING up a hill and within 7 minutes my heart is maxed it, I'm weak in the knees and I can't breathe and that's not bad. Don't forget, this test was done with me on two different medications to control my heart rate. Needless to say I am still very frustrated by the whole thing. "Inappropriate Sinus Tach" seems to be the consensus but it still drives me nuts. I am just praying that when we get the lyme and co-infections in remission that this issue will resolve itself for the most part. The other crazy part of this is the shortness of breath. You really feel like you are crazy when you feel like it is very hard to breath, you can't talk in complete sentences and your o2 saturation is 100%. Just confuses me to no end. I just need to follow up with some blood work and we will go from there. I have been working on my "heart breathing". I need to do it more often but I always do it in the sauna. Focus on my breathing, then breathing through my heart, then happy thoughts...which leads me to the last thing for the night.

Once again some amazing things have happened in the last day or two that just remind me how blessed I am. I'm not ready to share all of the details but God is doing some things behind the scenes so to speak and my husband and I both believe that what has gone on in just the last 24 hours is part of God's way of letting us know we are on the right track. I think some big things are in store for us and I can't wait. It is so interesting how God's timing works as well. I had a very rough end to my work week last week with some frustrations over something I felt I deserved that I didn't get only to see someone else turnaround and get it. I literally had to leave the office before I said something I would regret. In my husbands usual style, he reminded me I was wasting time being mad over something I couldn't change. I knew he was right but, but, but, well I still wanted to be upset. Long story short, I got over it, and am so happy that things went the way they did. One, I found out that the other person did truly need what they asked for. Second, if that situation would have worked in my favor then it wouldn't have allowed God to bless us like He has. I'm still learning day by day. I'm still human and get upset and think life is unfair sometimes but in the end I'm realizing I can only see one small part of the picture. Someone else has a much better view...

In closing I just wanted to send out an extra big THANK YOU and hugs to all of my amazing friends for your support. You know who you are, and God has put you in my life for a reason. I am so thankful for each and everyone of you.  Just in case you forgot...there are a couple of ways you can support me and family during this time. First you can pray for us. I don't underestimate the power of prayer and I could use all the prayers I can get. Second we would obviously accept your financial donations. You can do that from the blog by clicking on my "go fund me" link. You can buy some of my photography from my fototime link on my blog. Lastly you can watch the documentary "Under Our Skin" which is now available on Netflix to watch instantly. Thanks for following along. I'd love to hear from you. (Just so you know financially where we stand...we owe the doctors office roughly $1300 to catch up on my IV's we have done so far. If the 2 months off/on plan works and we are pretty much done after that then we still need to come up with about $5000. I just feel better letting you know what the costs really are.) Have a good night.
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It can't be good can it?

Happy Easter! I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend celebrating the fact that He has risen. I was able to spend some time with friends which was nice. This past week has been a little busy. It has been hard having the kids off of school. The weather went from great last a week ago to overcast and cool the whole week. It wasn't bad but we ended up in the house a lot more than I was expecting. I was hoping to do something fun with the girls while they were off but things just didn't come together. I think they still had an okay week off though. It will be nice when they go back to school tomorrow.

Nothing much has changed since the end of last week. I still have to get myself together as far as tracking my symptoms  go and just making sure that I have a really good and simple plan in place for getting all of my meds, supplements, and food in everyday. I just can't seem to do that stuff if I am out and about. That obviously won't work when I am back at work. I am still waiting to here back some from work about some of the final details for me coming back. STRESSFUL!

On a different note, I have been waiting for some basic blood work to come back. I figured the doctor would go over the results when I came in for my IV on Tuesday. I haven't seen the doctor in the last few weeks. Usually he pops in when I am getting my IV and just checks in but I think the last two weeks I haven't got to see him. On Saturday, I took the girls to a birthday party and while I am sitting there my phone rings. I look down and see that it's the doctors office. That is funny but it must just be the automated system telling me I have a message. His office uses a message system to give you blood test results and stuff but I still thought it was weird to be calling on a Saturday. I answer the phone and it's the doctor. My heart kind of stops and he says he got my blood tests results in. Now I am silently starting to panic. This can't be good if the doctor is calling me, himself, on a Saturday afternoon. Well basically everything looks fine. Really? I guess I have a pretty amazing doctor to call on a Saturday to tell me that. My CD-57 has gone up a  little more to 61. Over 60 for a Lymie is good but it needs to be back up too 200 or so when we are "all done" with treatment so to speak. At least my immune system should be starting to function on it's own a little bit. My concern with that is, if my immune system starts fighting some of the Lyme or co-infections itself am I going to start to feeling worse again? I guess time will tell. The only test that was low was my Vitamin D. This is somewhat concerning because I had boarder line numbers for Osteoporosis last year and I eat a lot of dairy. I have been taking Vit D supplements for a while and now the doctor wants me to increase them. I will ask more about that on Tuesday. I am guessing there is something I may need to take to help the absorption. The doctor asked how I was doing and if I was still feeling better. I explained that I was feeling better than I did 6 months ago but that I had this increase in my joint and bone pain. I had maybe more days with no pain but more days with intense pain if that makes sense. He told me to remind him and on Tuesday that he is going to add a Vitamin C treatment to my IV after my meds and send me home with some to do at home. I will find out more about that on Tuesday as well. Needless to say the call was good.

Despite the fact that I am supposed to go back to work in a few weeks we are still struggling financially and will be for a while. God has provided every step of the way even if it is not how I pictured things going. I am super excited and blessed that some of photos have sold. I do paid from my work even if it is only a few dollars per order. I am more excited that people are buying my work. I can't wait to get a chance to take some more pictures and add them to albums. People buying my work is probably one of the best feelings I have had (next to getting married and having my daughters). It gets me dreaming again, something I had stopped doing. Dreaming about the future and believing in possibilities. You can check out my work at my link on the top of the page. I love feed back and to know you visited even if you don't buy anything. (http://surfchaser.fototime.com/) To take a chance and try to help pay for some of my medical bills and treatment I also set up a donation page. You can click on the donate now button at the top of my page or go visit my page at www.gofundme.com/mylymetreatment.

I will keep you updated on the what the doctor says and work and well just life for us. Thanks for following along on my crazy journey called life. Oh and Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband.