The time is drawing close to when I took medical leave from school last year.
Last year, my husband walked out.
I had acquired the ridiculous flu of the moment, and remember being curled under layers of blankets, shaking with chills, and listening to him complain about how the house was messy, the dishes were dirty, and there was nothing to eat.
As you can probably easily tell, I am so better off now. :)
At the end of November, my bank funds were drained and I had to rely on my family (specifically, my fabulous mom) for help. It took the combined financial help of my parents and my boyfriend to finagle enough money to pay the bills, feed the horses, and buy my medications.
Lymes is an expensive disease. It requires a lot of money to buy the antibiotics that are effective in treating it, as most insurance companies turn up their noses at paying for the cost of such strange medications. It takes a lot of money to keep a house going when a person gets ill, especially if they had been the main (or only) breadwinner. It takes a lot out of the support system of that ill person to watch them battle this unending disease, as some days they would get a fleeting glimpse of that person pre-illness, and then suddenly it was back to being bed ridden 24/7.
I had a seizure.
After that, the unanimous decision was made to start oral doxycycline even though my test results were still a few weeks away. I was bed ridden, and slept almost 20 out of 24 hours. I woke up to see my friend M., who would come over, bundle me up in his truck, and let me drive while he shoveled silage to his cows. I thought it would be cute to shovel the first day, ignoring the tremors in my legs and the vertigo that made my world appear a crazed fun house. I ended up on my butt in the soft chopped corn, looking at the wide eyes of the cows around me.
But without the unending, ferocious help of my mother, I would not have recovered.
She paid bills.
She forced medications down my uncooperative self.
She took me to doctor appointments.
She fed my pets in the worst winter of the decade.
In short, she is awesome.
While I was a rather unpleasant patient, growling at her all the time, looking back I know she was the key to my improvement. Although I probably could have been the poster child for Lyme Rage, she still put up with me. :)
The other consistent factor in my life was and is my supportative boyfriend M. My marriage, in a word, sucked as I was the caretaker of a very spoiled, indulged man-child. I honestly don't know how I dealt with that for so long, but think that it was probably due to my single minded dedication to getting into medical school. Dealing with a sick wife in medical school and animals and this strange half built house was more than that city boy was capable of, and I have benefitted so much because of that. While at the time it hurt unbelievably, I would not have really been open to dating M., or learned what a considerate, caring person he is. (I like to think I make him happy too lol!)
M. takes care of the day to day burden of making sure I sleep enough, eat enough, take my medication, and go to class PLUS dealing with all the animal drama. I'm lucky he is a farm boy, and no stranger to hard work! Heck, I'm just lucky to have him.
I think where my Lyme brain is going with this is to highlight that recovery is not a stagnant process. Like raising a village, recovery from this disease is a group fight. I look at my family around me and see that instead of breaking us apart, Lymes has made me appreciate them so much more.
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