"In the script of life, it often surprises me how the seemingly harmless "typos" we thoughtlessly make, ultimately have the power to alter our entire storyline...beware to choose your words wisely and with much care."
The first two days I forcibly wrote off as completely psychosomatic, doggedly determined to believe that the sudden anxiety and dread that vibrated throughout my entire body was merely created by my knowing that I had stopped something that I had, for so long, believed was keeping me healthy. I tried to resume my normal work schedule and deal with this strange anxiety as best I could. When my thoughts began to race incoherently, and I couldn’t help but feel my myself repeating some senseless sentence over and over in my head as if some compulsion to do so entertained my mind, I too wrote that off as nothing but anxiety.
Later that day, I heard a familiar laughter coming from the outdoor common area behind our apartment, and eagerly went over to greet my friends, but as I tried to listen in on their conversation and participate I realized that I had absolutely no idea what they were saying. It wasn’t the subject matter I couldn’t comprehend – it seemed that the words spoken by them simply did not penetrate, making me unable to understand – almost as if they were talking in a foreign language that I had never heard before. Their voices began to irritate me, and I shied away through the backdoor in an attempt to escape the meaningless noise and retreat into the quite of my room – hoping that I was just tired, and that rest would most certainly restore me.
Unfortunately, however, sleep was suddenly no longer a possibility. Every time I tried to lie down and close my eyes, my attention was immediately drawn to the constant buzzing panic that seemed to originate from my spine and head, extending outwards. There was strange chatter - incomprehensible conversations raced through my mind, and images – random images that popped sporadically into my head without any cause of call for them to do so, and I found myself unable to relax. In fact, the experience of it was so bizarre, that I forced myself to get up and focus on anything else but what was going on in my body.
I spent those two nights in a state of perpetual “awake” mode. When everyone retired for the evening, I would go outside and spend all night obsessively trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I tried desperately to puzzle out this sudden transformation, but my memory of the day seemed very far away – inaccessible even. Every now and then I would randomly remember that I had stopped taking the antibiotics, but even then, refused to believe that this had anything to do with it.
My sister would try and urge me inside during those first two night – saying I needed to sleep, but my body just couldn’t, and I even started to become afraid of the thought of it. I was losing myself to something so powerful, and I felt that if I lost consciousness even for a couple hours, it would consume every part of me, and I would awaken completely lost.
The third day, Jessie had to remind me that I was scheduled to work, and I forced myself to go, even though I now felt as if my brain was short-circuiting, sending electrical pulses throughout my entire body that made my arms and legs jerk at the intensity of it. I felt as if tiny electrical explosions were rampaging throughout my head – the picture I had of it in my mind was rather similar to what I imagined would happen if someone had poured water over the hard-drive of an actively running computer, making it spark in sputter with interruption, chaotically disturbing the signals hardwired within.
I remember taking a zanax before I went in, and it seemed to slow everything down enough to make me concentrate on completing the few massages I had scheduled that day. Although I had done the various techniques thousands of times before, it took all my effort to recall my routine, and I awkwardly willed my body to execute these movements as if they were new, and I was performing them for the first time.
In between appointments, I tried to relax in the break room, snacking on some apple pie that someone had brought in for the day. I could feel the sugar dissolve into my body and it reacted immediately. I held my fork over the empty plate and was simply stunned – that’s the best way I could describe it. I just sat there staring blankly at the plate, a feeling of fading came over me and I couldn’t move. A co-worker eventually came over to ask if I was ok, embarrassed I awkwardly tried to stand and without looking at him walked back to my room, knocking over and bumping into things the entire way.
By the time my shift was over, the zanax was wearing off, and the overwhelming sensations returned with vengeance. It was only then, as I was driving home that I finally got it. A scary but familiar feeling crept over me as I made my way back – the feeling that I had absolutely no idea where I was or where I was going. I knew I had driven this route hundreds of times before, why on earth would I not…I jumped with a start, as I recalled where I had had this feeling before and why. Immediately, I erased all notion that the past three days had been a psychosomatic event, and knew that I was relapsing.
I made it home and quickly ran to my sister, screaming at her that it was Lyme, and I was certain of it, that I needed help – and fast. She took one look at the terror and desperation in my eyes and knew it was true. I nearly leapt for the bottle of medicine I had stashed away in the cupboard and gulped down the pill in one swallow, hoping that I had made it in time.
By now, everyone in our apartment complex knew something was wrong with me – something serious, and we all waited in the common area for some kind of miracle to happen once I told them I had taken the medicine. Concern washed over their faces as we sat there for twenty minutes waiting. I too, rocked back and forth in my seat, just…waiting.
In the end, a pause, nothing more, is what I got. I was sitting there, still waiting, when it happened. I felt my body slightly relax and my head clear, the anxiety and dread started to dissipate and I knew in that moment that I had been right. I slow smile crept over my face as I experienced a moment of slight relief. Everyone glanced up in hope as they too noticed me start to unwind and could see the hint of a smile glimmer across my face.
I felt as though the pause in my symptoms reflected the pause of the bacteria. I felt that they could sense the presence of a new element in my body and momentarily stopped the war against me to curiously look at it, weighing and measuring it in some fashion. To me, it was similar to stopping a tidal wave in mid-motion, just as it was about to engulf me. My body willed it so, and I gazed in wonder and amazement at seeing something colossal and life-threatening stop dead in tracks.
I could feel the tidal wave hovering over me, accessing the situation, and then, almost with a dark and sadistic laugh, realized its strength and came down with a furious growl, washing me away as if I was nothing more than a tiny insect trapped in its path.
The look of hope vanished from my friends’ faces as my smile slowly faded, and my face contorted into one of absolute horror. My eyes once again glazed over in confusion as the infection overtook both me, and the only weapon I had against it. I had lost. I was immune. I was…completely screwed.
I attempted to double the dose of Zithromax, like I had done many times before, but it was useless. I felt as if I was but one soldier being trampled by thousands, and the armor I wore was now as handy as wildly trying to wave a peace flag in the mist of the surge.
I allowed myself to be crushed to bits, too tired to fight anymore. Although my sister and I desperately sought to find a Lyme Specialist, in such a non-epidemic place, I was losing hope. The few doctors we did find often had waiting periods of up to 6 weeks, and – without insurance, were simply too expensive to see. Luckily, on the fourth day, I found myself sobbing on the phone to a sympathetic receptionist at our last number on the list, begging her to allow me to see the doctor as soon as possible. She reacted so strongly to my pleadings, that she single handedly re-arranged the entire schedule for the following day to allot me a slot.
That night I was out-voted by my friends and sister who insisted that I needed to sleep – it was the last thing I felt like doing, but was handed a strong dose of zanax and ordered to take it. As I layed in bed, next to my sister that night, I couldn’t help but feel what was happening to my body – It felt like my spine and head were literally sizzling to pieces, and I was forced to watched helplessly as I lost one cognitive ability after another. I started to cry and searched across the bed to embrace my sister, hoping to ease both the pain and fear, and repeatedly said, "Jessie – I just can’t fight it, I can’t fight this." With her arms around me, I tried to sleep – I really did. The zanax had done nothing but make me groggy, but nowhere near sleepy. Closing my eyes only made me more aware of my body and what was going on inside, so I tried to escape by keeping them open and detaching myself from the experience.
During the course of the night, I kept watching my sister with such desperate envy as she peacefully lay there breathing rhythmically in deep sleep. I wondered if I’d ever know what that kind of peace felt like again. Unfortunately for her however, I abruptly shook her awake with urgency as I felt an icy and magnetically dense swirl of electricity torturously move through and down my spine. I screamed with terror, at this incomprehensible sensation, begging my sister to take me to the hospital. She tried to comfort me saying that we’d see a doctor in the morning and that whatever I was going through would soon end once we did. I recovered from my hysterics as quickly as I could, not wanting to disturb her, although I thoroughly disagreed with what she was saying – knowing, from experience, that it was untrue. I instead turned around, left the apartment, and paced back and forth for an hour outside, as my sister fell back asleep. Finally, after exhausting myself to a point I never thought possible, I went back in and silently crawled back into bed.
I must have fallen asleep for an hour or so in the early morning hours, and the last thing I remember thinking, just as a new symptom - misproprioception, had led me to ponder over why I suddenly perceived my head as being twenty feet long – I thought to myself, “This. Is. Ridiculous.”
I awoke with a start on the fifth day – the day of our doctor’s visit, covered in undeserved sweat, and nauseated by the memory of the horrific, bloody nightmares I had while sleeping. As my sister and I got up, we were both surprised at how limited my cognitive awareness, processing, and planning abilities were. The task at hand was simple really – get ready. For some reason, when she told me to do so, I just stared at her blankly. I vaguely remember trying to piece out exactly what that routine entailed. She saw the look of confusion on my face and ordered me to go brush my teeth (ah – yes…brush my teeth), wash my face and put some clothes on. The first two tasks I did robotically, but the third was so overwhelming to my mind (what goes with what again??) that my sister had to come pick out the clothes for me and even help me dress. We were both shocked to see how skinny I had become over the course of the week – 15 pounds less to be exact. How was that possible – hadn’t I been eating? The thought repulsed me, and even though she tried, I refused to put anything into my agitated stomach as we sat, huddled over our kitchen table, trying to make a list of my symptoms and questions for the doctor to read.
It took awhile to put it together. I didn’t remember much of the past few days, and Jessie had to help with that as well. Also, I had a hard time making coherent sentences out of the words that were coming to mind. I would often mistake the meaning of one word for another, and had trouble finishing a sentence because I couldn’t remember why I had started writing it to begin with. I found this was also true when trying to "talk" about it. The phrase, "I'm sorry, but I have NO idea what we were just talking about...can you repeat that??" would become commonplace in the months to come.
When we did finally make it out the door and into the car, I couldn't help but notice just how completely "gone" I really was. I didn't recognize Jessie's car, in fact - she had to lead me to it. My surroundings seemed completely unfamiliar to me, and I even struggled in comprehending where I was "geographically" in the world. (Ah - yes, I'm in California...um, I'm sorry...what does that mean again??). There was a couple of other horrific things I would come to find. I had absolutely no "sense" of time, or could even tell you what day it was. I also had no concept of "money" - what it meant, how to value it...it seemed that area of my mind was wiped clean as well.
In fact, as you will see in upcoming chapters, this sudden onset of "dementia" would become so severe over those next few weeks, that I would often have sit-down conversations with my sister, where she literally had to CONVINCE me how exactly I was related to her. I often did not recognize my apartment, my friends, my family, and was in a perpetual state of disorientated confusion, agonizing, skull crushing pain, and an unending sense of complete and utter terror.
Like I said in the beginning of this chapter, beware of those thoughtless choices you make...sometimes the consequences of seemingly harmless actions can alter your entire life. It only took five days for me lose everything I worked so hard for, a thoughtless choice I made years ago; one that I'm still, to this day, trapped in the repercussions of...
Unfortunately, however, sleep was suddenly no longer a possibility. Every time I tried to lie down and close my eyes, my attention was immediately drawn to the constant buzzing panic that seemed to originate from my spine and head, extending outwards. There was strange chatter - incomprehensible conversations raced through my mind, and images – random images that popped sporadically into my head without any cause of call for them to do so, and I found myself unable to relax. In fact, the experience of it was so bizarre, that I forced myself to get up and focus on anything else but what was going on in my body.
I spent those two nights in a state of perpetual “awake” mode. When everyone retired for the evening, I would go outside and spend all night obsessively trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I tried desperately to puzzle out this sudden transformation, but my memory of the day seemed very far away – inaccessible even. Every now and then I would randomly remember that I had stopped taking the antibiotics, but even then, refused to believe that this had anything to do with it.
My sister would try and urge me inside during those first two night – saying I needed to sleep, but my body just couldn’t, and I even started to become afraid of the thought of it. I was losing myself to something so powerful, and I felt that if I lost consciousness even for a couple hours, it would consume every part of me, and I would awaken completely lost.
The third day, Jessie had to remind me that I was scheduled to work, and I forced myself to go, even though I now felt as if my brain was short-circuiting, sending electrical pulses throughout my entire body that made my arms and legs jerk at the intensity of it. I felt as if tiny electrical explosions were rampaging throughout my head – the picture I had of it in my mind was rather similar to what I imagined would happen if someone had poured water over the hard-drive of an actively running computer, making it spark in sputter with interruption, chaotically disturbing the signals hardwired within.
I remember taking a zanax before I went in, and it seemed to slow everything down enough to make me concentrate on completing the few massages I had scheduled that day. Although I had done the various techniques thousands of times before, it took all my effort to recall my routine, and I awkwardly willed my body to execute these movements as if they were new, and I was performing them for the first time.
In between appointments, I tried to relax in the break room, snacking on some apple pie that someone had brought in for the day. I could feel the sugar dissolve into my body and it reacted immediately. I held my fork over the empty plate and was simply stunned – that’s the best way I could describe it. I just sat there staring blankly at the plate, a feeling of fading came over me and I couldn’t move. A co-worker eventually came over to ask if I was ok, embarrassed I awkwardly tried to stand and without looking at him walked back to my room, knocking over and bumping into things the entire way.
By the time my shift was over, the zanax was wearing off, and the overwhelming sensations returned with vengeance. It was only then, as I was driving home that I finally got it. A scary but familiar feeling crept over me as I made my way back – the feeling that I had absolutely no idea where I was or where I was going. I knew I had driven this route hundreds of times before, why on earth would I not…I jumped with a start, as I recalled where I had had this feeling before and why. Immediately, I erased all notion that the past three days had been a psychosomatic event, and knew that I was relapsing.
I made it home and quickly ran to my sister, screaming at her that it was Lyme, and I was certain of it, that I needed help – and fast. She took one look at the terror and desperation in my eyes and knew it was true. I nearly leapt for the bottle of medicine I had stashed away in the cupboard and gulped down the pill in one swallow, hoping that I had made it in time.
By now, everyone in our apartment complex knew something was wrong with me – something serious, and we all waited in the common area for some kind of miracle to happen once I told them I had taken the medicine. Concern washed over their faces as we sat there for twenty minutes waiting. I too, rocked back and forth in my seat, just…waiting.
In the end, a pause, nothing more, is what I got. I was sitting there, still waiting, when it happened. I felt my body slightly relax and my head clear, the anxiety and dread started to dissipate and I knew in that moment that I had been right. I slow smile crept over my face as I experienced a moment of slight relief. Everyone glanced up in hope as they too noticed me start to unwind and could see the hint of a smile glimmer across my face.
I felt as though the pause in my symptoms reflected the pause of the bacteria. I felt that they could sense the presence of a new element in my body and momentarily stopped the war against me to curiously look at it, weighing and measuring it in some fashion. To me, it was similar to stopping a tidal wave in mid-motion, just as it was about to engulf me. My body willed it so, and I gazed in wonder and amazement at seeing something colossal and life-threatening stop dead in tracks.
I could feel the tidal wave hovering over me, accessing the situation, and then, almost with a dark and sadistic laugh, realized its strength and came down with a furious growl, washing me away as if I was nothing more than a tiny insect trapped in its path.
The look of hope vanished from my friends’ faces as my smile slowly faded, and my face contorted into one of absolute horror. My eyes once again glazed over in confusion as the infection overtook both me, and the only weapon I had against it. I had lost. I was immune. I was…completely screwed.
I attempted to double the dose of Zithromax, like I had done many times before, but it was useless. I felt as if I was but one soldier being trampled by thousands, and the armor I wore was now as handy as wildly trying to wave a peace flag in the mist of the surge.
I allowed myself to be crushed to bits, too tired to fight anymore. Although my sister and I desperately sought to find a Lyme Specialist, in such a non-epidemic place, I was losing hope. The few doctors we did find often had waiting periods of up to 6 weeks, and – without insurance, were simply too expensive to see. Luckily, on the fourth day, I found myself sobbing on the phone to a sympathetic receptionist at our last number on the list, begging her to allow me to see the doctor as soon as possible. She reacted so strongly to my pleadings, that she single handedly re-arranged the entire schedule for the following day to allot me a slot.
That night I was out-voted by my friends and sister who insisted that I needed to sleep – it was the last thing I felt like doing, but was handed a strong dose of zanax and ordered to take it. As I layed in bed, next to my sister that night, I couldn’t help but feel what was happening to my body – It felt like my spine and head were literally sizzling to pieces, and I was forced to watched helplessly as I lost one cognitive ability after another. I started to cry and searched across the bed to embrace my sister, hoping to ease both the pain and fear, and repeatedly said, "Jessie – I just can’t fight it, I can’t fight this." With her arms around me, I tried to sleep – I really did. The zanax had done nothing but make me groggy, but nowhere near sleepy. Closing my eyes only made me more aware of my body and what was going on inside, so I tried to escape by keeping them open and detaching myself from the experience.
During the course of the night, I kept watching my sister with such desperate envy as she peacefully lay there breathing rhythmically in deep sleep. I wondered if I’d ever know what that kind of peace felt like again. Unfortunately for her however, I abruptly shook her awake with urgency as I felt an icy and magnetically dense swirl of electricity torturously move through and down my spine. I screamed with terror, at this incomprehensible sensation, begging my sister to take me to the hospital. She tried to comfort me saying that we’d see a doctor in the morning and that whatever I was going through would soon end once we did. I recovered from my hysterics as quickly as I could, not wanting to disturb her, although I thoroughly disagreed with what she was saying – knowing, from experience, that it was untrue. I instead turned around, left the apartment, and paced back and forth for an hour outside, as my sister fell back asleep. Finally, after exhausting myself to a point I never thought possible, I went back in and silently crawled back into bed.
I must have fallen asleep for an hour or so in the early morning hours, and the last thing I remember thinking, just as a new symptom - misproprioception, had led me to ponder over why I suddenly perceived my head as being twenty feet long – I thought to myself, “This. Is. Ridiculous.”
I awoke with a start on the fifth day – the day of our doctor’s visit, covered in undeserved sweat, and nauseated by the memory of the horrific, bloody nightmares I had while sleeping. As my sister and I got up, we were both surprised at how limited my cognitive awareness, processing, and planning abilities were. The task at hand was simple really – get ready. For some reason, when she told me to do so, I just stared at her blankly. I vaguely remember trying to piece out exactly what that routine entailed. She saw the look of confusion on my face and ordered me to go brush my teeth (ah – yes…brush my teeth), wash my face and put some clothes on. The first two tasks I did robotically, but the third was so overwhelming to my mind (what goes with what again??) that my sister had to come pick out the clothes for me and even help me dress. We were both shocked to see how skinny I had become over the course of the week – 15 pounds less to be exact. How was that possible – hadn’t I been eating? The thought repulsed me, and even though she tried, I refused to put anything into my agitated stomach as we sat, huddled over our kitchen table, trying to make a list of my symptoms and questions for the doctor to read.
It took awhile to put it together. I didn’t remember much of the past few days, and Jessie had to help with that as well. Also, I had a hard time making coherent sentences out of the words that were coming to mind. I would often mistake the meaning of one word for another, and had trouble finishing a sentence because I couldn’t remember why I had started writing it to begin with. I found this was also true when trying to "talk" about it. The phrase, "I'm sorry, but I have NO idea what we were just talking about...can you repeat that??" would become commonplace in the months to come.
When we did finally make it out the door and into the car, I couldn't help but notice just how completely "gone" I really was. I didn't recognize Jessie's car, in fact - she had to lead me to it. My surroundings seemed completely unfamiliar to me, and I even struggled in comprehending where I was "geographically" in the world. (Ah - yes, I'm in California...um, I'm sorry...what does that mean again??). There was a couple of other horrific things I would come to find. I had absolutely no "sense" of time, or could even tell you what day it was. I also had no concept of "money" - what it meant, how to value it...it seemed that area of my mind was wiped clean as well.
In fact, as you will see in upcoming chapters, this sudden onset of "dementia" would become so severe over those next few weeks, that I would often have sit-down conversations with my sister, where she literally had to CONVINCE me how exactly I was related to her. I often did not recognize my apartment, my friends, my family, and was in a perpetual state of disorientated confusion, agonizing, skull crushing pain, and an unending sense of complete and utter terror.
Like I said in the beginning of this chapter, beware of those thoughtless choices you make...sometimes the consequences of seemingly harmless actions can alter your entire life. It only took five days for me lose everything I worked so hard for, a thoughtless choice I made years ago; one that I'm still, to this day, trapped in the repercussions of...
are there more chapters?
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