This past week has been both difficult and interesting. I’ve been dealing with a few nightmares, both the kind that occur in dreams and the kind that impede on reality. At the same time, I’ve had interactions that confirm and increase my faith in human beings.
Literal Nightmares
One of the most consistent symptoms that I get with Babesia is disturbing dreams. These are dreams that come very close to the surface of consciousness, ones that I can remember when I wake up (often as a night sweat breaks), ones that make me feel disoriented. As I coiled daily for a while, the dreams died down in frequency.
Then this week, I got food poisoning from rice on Thursday evening at a restaurant I eat at frequently. It precipitated severe stomach cramps, followed by several bouts of severe diarrhea that lasted until I went to bed. Because of the stress my body was facing, I decided to skip my evening coiling session for Babesia. I reasoned that it was like skipping one dose of antibiotics.
Well, starting Thursday night, I’ve been having a lot of night sweats and innumerable nightmares. Often they are a mix of a little bit of the present with some unresolved issue in the past and then lots of things that don’t make any sense but are rather disturbing. I’m even having nightmares when I take naps (which I need to do more often because my sleep at night is interrupted). Along with the nightmares, I’m more tired than I’ve been lately…which is already very tired. Plus, the headaches and light sensitivity are becoming a daily occurrence again. It seems that missing one coiling session has given the infection a boost and I’m drowning in symptoms again.
Echoes of an old nightmare
The attack of diarrhea has put me in a precarious emotional state. This chronic case of Lyme became disabling shortly after I got food poisoning from rice in January 2007. The diarrhea didn’t stop after the first day, or rather, my stools became incredibly loose and then more problems quickly ensued: vomiting, weakness, neurological problems in my legs that became an inability to walk. It took 18 months for the diarrhea to completely leave.
So these past few days, I’ve been on edge. The Lyme symptoms have increased since Thursday, primarily in my lower back and legs. I’ve been having joint and muscle symptoms all over my body since mid-September, and now they have increased in intensity. I’m nervous. Meanwhile, my intestines, which had gone from constipated to kind of loose, are now evacuating multiple times a day and are very irritated.
I keep reminding myself that now I know what to do to battle the symptoms as they occur. I coiled for Lyme a day early (today rather than Monday) and I’m hoping that I don’t end up going under again.
21st Century Nightmares
One of the universities I went to had a security breach last year resulting in some portion of the alumni database, including social security numbers, birthdays, addresses, etc. to be searchable on Google. Oops. Now, a year later, I found out that my identity was stolen. Someone opened a PayPal account and a BillMeLater account using my name and information, then spent $2500. I’ve spent the last two weeks helping a police officer track them down and trying to track down and fill out all the paperwork necessary to put fraud alerts on my account and at the credit bureaus. (These activities have impeded my ability to blog because I can only concentrate so much in one day and have limits on what I can do each day on the computer due to my eyes and arms.)
My other nightmare is that the State of New York somehow lost my tax return, from 2008 no less, and I have to find the copies in the boxes yet to be unpacked since I moved. This one will ultimately be easier to resolve, and maybe I’ll finally get that refund…
Angels
The big angel this week has been my husband. I’ve been so limited by body problems and now I have deadlines for unexpected problems, that he has to do way more than his share of taking care of our living space and taking care of me. I’ve been more prone to emotional outbursts because I feel stressed by the resurgence of my symptoms, by the fears associated with the food poisoning and by the identity theft. It’s hard when it all happens at once. Joe has been incredibly understanding and willing to let me cry before he cheers me up.
My other angel is my nephew who I got to skype with yesterday. He is a bundle of giggles and he brightens my day. (It was nice to see me sister and brother-in-law, too.) Nineteen months old is a great age.
Coiling
With the exception of Thursday night, I’ve been coiling twice daily for Babesia and once daily for Bartonella. Last Monday and Tuesday, I coiled for Lyme, lower body one day and upper body the next. Today I coiled my lower body for Lyme.
Categories: healing process, using the coil machine
Tags: babesia, bartonella, lyme, symptoms
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Coiling for Lyme 