The Climb

The last two months have been challenging. I started IV treatment the Monday before Thanksgiving (November 23rd, 2009) Two weeks later I asked my doctor to do his best no mater the cost or what insurance would cover. He added Clarithromycin to my treatment and we continued the IV for an extra two weeks. The extra weeks were out of pocket. I was lucky that my family all scraped together to help me cover the cost. Without them I would not have been able to afford it. This time, the IV treatment went well without any major issues. I was even able to continue my sleeping schedule in preparation of going back to work.

On January 6th, 2010, we removed the pic line and continued Doxy orally and then added yet another drug to go with the doxy and clarithromycin called metronidazole or known as flagel. I started throwing up on this new drug. I have the classic symptoms of a pregnant women. Some foods I can't eat and some I can't even smell without getting ill. I learned how to balance taking them (Flagel every 8 hours and doxy and clarith when I wake up and when I go to bed) so that they didn't cause me to throw up. I also learned what foods were ok and which ones hurt through trial and error. My stomach is always in pain now but it's more tolerable then throwing up and I think I have it manageable now.

The other side affect was an extra amount of exhaustion. I would stand up and be extremely dizzy, and walking up the stairs felt like I just tried to sprint a 200m race even though I took them slowly. There were moments of lashing out at my guy from over sensitivity and other moments where I would take a shower in the morning and end up back in bed in tears because I just couldn't do anything. It's been a very rough three weeks.

Two weeks ago I started getting weekly massages. I HIGHLY suggest this if you can afford it. I can not explain what a large difference that they have made on me. Not only do they help flush out any toxins but it energies me. They really started to make me feel different.

5 days ago, I felt like walking. It was 50 outside and the sun was out which felt so nice. I didn't walk far but the fact that I felt like doing it was almost as though I was breaking through something. I suffered shin splints from walking... which was odd but I was wearing boots. I switched to running shoes and that fixed the issue. I've been walking every other day and feeling a lot better. At this time, I still have to take a nap after but it's well worth it.

The flagel is what made me really crash physically/mentally. It was harder this time to look on the positive. It's taken me this long struggling to find something to write here but finding nothing but negative depressing thoughts. I just wasn't motivated. It was as though I was still morning the fact that this time last year... I was going through the exact same thing.

It's ok to go into a dark cave for a while, but if your strong you have to climb out eventually.

The positive to all of this was that people are starting to notice that I appear to be losing weight. I feel that this is a combination of the meds, and my carefully measured eating habits. Now that I am starting to show some improvements on the meds, it's time to start building my life back up... slowly and carefully measured!