Month: January 2022

time warp

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Anybody who has known me for any length of time knows that I am the world’s worst at dates and times. This is a neural defect I can’t blame on Lyme. It’s also not ADHD, nor is it carelessness. I could blame it on falling out of a tree at the age of seven. My head cracked like an egg on the cement driveway below and I was in a coma. I am deaf in my left ear from that fall, and I like to believe that the very tiny area of the brain that processes dates and times was also damaged. Otherwise, my inability to remember dates and times is just pathetic.

My issues with this go waaaaaaaay back, and have been a family joke since I can remember. Mom often said I would be late for my own funeral. I have a tendency to forget about the month of February. Don’t ever ask me what the day and date is. Although I have a great memory for details about people and things that happened, like how one cold spring night in high school I was drinking Jack and Coke with friends (I could name them, but you know…) lying on the hood of a car parked in an undeveloped cul-de-sac  listening to Peter Frampton’s “Do You Feel” for the first time, but I can’t tell you off the top of my head for certain which year Katie graduated from high school (it was 2004 or 2005, so I do have it narrowed down.) It was a source of irritation to my ex that I could never quite remember our anniversary, probably because it was in February.

I don’t do this on purpose, or for attention. Yes, I have employed many of the methods I’m sure you could suggest for me. I’ve had calendars, alarms, reminders, and sticky notes. I’ve worn rubber bands that snapped at my wrist. The problem is that I can look at the calendar and see events, birthdays, and appointments, and ten minutes later it is all gone from my brain, like it never was.

This gives my life an element of mystery, for sure. My bewilderment is genuine, and my surprise at missing something is never feigned. I’ve long since given up being embarrassed about it.

Sometimes I’d love to see an MRI of my brain while questioned about dates and times. I’m fairly certain there would be very little activity. At least I hope that is what it would show, because it’s not like I want to be this way. For me, it truly is a form of brain damage, the area of time and dates a blank canvas sparsely spattered with random dates that I do remember.

There are many stories about my inability to get dates straight. I can remember a few, especially the epic ones. The most epic, the one I hate to tell, is the time I managed to score Prince tickets when he came to Denver for two nights. The tickets were something like twentieth row seats and cost over $600, because we invited another couple to go with us. I’m guessing a lot of you can see where this story is going. We headed down to the Pepsi Center the second night, because I was sure that was the night. It wasn’t. Honestly, I was surprised they took it so well. Also surprised I didn’t get divorced over that (although it does show the level of disfunction in our relationship that I didn’t forward any info to my ex. It was a control thing between us that grew worse and worse).

There was the time I missed a mini-reunion with high school friends because I got the night wrong. I think I even argued with them that I was right. I don’t do that any more, thank goodness. No, I accept this brain fluke and try to make sure it doesn’t happen too often. I’ve also learned to ask my friends for reminders, and I always check to see if businesses send reminder texts for appointments.

Technology has become my best friend for this problem. I’m going on vacation with my friend Laura in March. Fortunately for me, Orbitz and Airbnb update my calendar for me, reducing the risk of entering the wrong dates. Yes, I do that quite often. Another quirk of my date deficiency is that a day or date that is wrong will get stuck in my brain and won’t move, like a popcorn kernel wedged between two back molars. That’s something that really drives Katie crazy. “No, mom, I already told you four times, it’s next Saturday, not this Saturday!”  But Laura , bless her, reminded me to send her all the reservations and dates so she can double-check to see if I’ve screwed up and enter them on her own calendar.

Sometimes I don’t know why friends put up with this nonsense. Maybe if you are aware of it you simply accept it as a quirk and adjust accordingly, like Laura, or get annoyed and needle me, like Katie. I’m grateful the people in my life have accepted this foible of mine and I’ll gladly accept nagging, teasing, and constant reminders if it means I won’t forget.

There must be other stories, just like there are other stories about my deaf ear. If you remember any, I’d love to hear them. I’ll probably remember the memory, but not the date and time. And please, if I ever make plans with you, put it on your calendar and shoot me a couple of texts.

 

 

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balancing act

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I got my booster shot yesterday. I’d forgotten how much each vaccine stirs up my immune system. It’s not major, not in the context of Lyme, but it is just one more insult to my body. Sometimes I get sick of always monitoring my health. Not in the “I take vitamins, exercise, eat right, and get a good night’s sleep” way, but a daily assessment of what is going on with my body. There are the decisions on which supplements to take to keep me on an even keel.  More decisions on which herbs to have for the co-infections to keep them in check. I often have to figure out what else is going on, too. Is my digestive system crap today or am I good? How is that stupid chronic cough that is directly tied to my gut going? Is my liver going to protest from endotoxin overload today? It’s exhausting, especially when compounded by the threat COVID and  reactions to vaccines.

I am not against vaccines. On the contrary, with my immune system, I require them. I just wish they weren’t one more thing to upset the delicate balancing act of staying well and stable. This is the norm for most chronic Lyme patients, always putting out fires just to have new ones pop up. I’m trying to think of another disease that matches the sheer scope of systemic problems. I had to look up the systems of the body and there are ten: skeletal, muscular, nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, lymphatic, respiratory, digestive, urinary, and the reproductive system. On any given day, I can have problems with four or more of these systems. Not huge, life-threatening problems ( I don’t think!), these are erratic, maddening shocks that mentally and physically wear me down.

But getting COVID could be very serious for me, so I take the vaccines and try and figure out how they affect my body and then I try to regain my balance.

That brings me to another balancing act: the CDC’s handling of COVID. They have managed to infuriate nearly everyone with their ever-changing guidelines and recommendations.

I’ve been mad at the CDC for over six years now. The CDC has let me down at nearly every level during my illness. They have suppressed research that could help me and thousands of other Lyme sufferers. They deny the existence of chronic Lyme and actively go after physicians who will treat chronic Lyme. They have knowingly undercounted cases of Lyme disease. In the past several years, they have grudgingly admitted that they undercounted and are slowwwwwly starting to recognize and collect data on chronic Lyme cases.

This puts me in a quandary when it comes to COVID. It is difficult to put total trust into an institution that has so clearly failed me. I have to remind myself that COVID is different. There are many, many scientists and pharmaceutical companies working with the CDC to figure out vaccines, tests, and public policy. But there are just as many who aren’t, and there are politicians using COVID for political points, not for the public good.

I have to remind myself that the CDC is a big, sprawling entity with around 15,000 employees whose main goal is public health and safety.  Lyme disease is one tiny part. Yet there are troubling signs that indicate the CDC has become more and more compromised by politics, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and rifts in the medical community itself.

In the age of COVID, this influence is particularly noticeable. During TFG’s tenure, the CDC had to tailor their statements and recommendations to align with the administration’s views. Now we have a less hamstrung agency that nonetheless continues to get the tone wrong. We all get it: this is a new disease with very little data to go on. We don’t know who is vulnerable or how to successfully test and vaccine everyone. Protocols and recommendations change with both new strains and new data that informs new guidelines.

All of that leaves most of us exhausted, grumpy, and unsure what to do. They are trying to balance public policy to keep businesses and schools open while protecting us. But who is their real master? Their recommendations are being subverted at state and local levels, often kowtowing to political pressure rather than public good.

Lyme disease faces similar challenges. Physicians in some states have been criminally charged for treating chronic Lyme patients. There is a constantly changing narrative on what it is and how to treat it. I know I get extremely angry at the lack of a consensus about diagnosis, treatment, and outcome. At the same time, I am denied insurance, disability, and treatments because they have been deemed by the CDC as not real.

This leaves Lyme patients distrustful of their advice and ripe for scams and unproven, sometimes dangerous “cures.” I realize this dilemma aligns with certain arguments posited about COVID, and therein lies the danger of the insidious pattern of science denial. If we had research funds going into Lyme for the past thirty years and the CDC kept us updated with their best recommendations, maybe I wouldn’t have this distrust. If powers behind the CDC allowed the agency to operate on the basis of protecting public health above profits, egos, and politics perhaps we’d be in a better place with COVID.

In many ways, I feel their balancing act is much more difficult than mine, because ultimately, I have placed myself outside the system and I am the one in charge of my health decisions. I try to base those decisions on facts and scientific evidence, but often times there are none, not because Lyme is a new disease, but because there is a willful, systematic denial of the existence of the disease. Huh. Perhaps our efforts are more alike than I thought.

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