I used to work in healthcare. Since I was little there were two things I was interested in, the paranormal and helping people who were sick. I went to school to be a medical assistant but didn’t like working in the doctor's office. I liked taking care of people long term. But this disease took every dream away from me. Now I feel like a big burden on everyone!
The first time I got sick was at a mall, and my heart started pounding. I felt like I had the flu, and my friend took me to an emergency room. They told me it was a panic attack. Well it never went away. I would go to the emergency room daily, sometimes more than once because of my heart racing or palpitations. My head felt funny and I couldn’t focus. Eventually I didn’t leave the house for three months. I thought I was going crazy. I was hospitalized for a couple of days. My doctor said I was dehydrated and looked sick. Several tests showed nothing, except an ultrasound on my heart showed “possible” mitral prolapse.
In 1992 I moved to a new house but was always restless. I couldn’t handle working. I felt nervous, like something was wrong, but doctors still couldn’t find anything. At this point doctors had me on several meds from Ativan to Prozac. Nothing helped, and most anti-anxiety drugs made me feel even worse.
In 1993 I moved to Arizona and joined a panic disorder group. Heartburn started, really bad. I kept going from doctor to doctor. A charcoal swallowing study showed acid reflux and hiatal hernia. My neck got really stiff. I had a fever and started hallucinating that the room was made of dots. I got big hives up and down my thighs, which lasted for about three months. Doctors gave me steroids and diagnosed me with Desert Valley Fever and later a Black Widow bite. Later tests showed negative for Valley Fever.
My body was broken, my spirit was wounded, and there were no answers. My dear pastor in Pensacola, Pastor Schettler, came over one day, and we all got down on our knees, and took it to the Lord in prayer. The Lord promised us that when we pass through the waters, He will be with us. And through the rivers, they shall not overflow us. And when we walk through the fire, we will not be burned.
A couple months later, Mom found a naturopathic doctor in Texas. She was knowledgeable on Lyme disease and she worked with a neurologist. He is a brain surgeon who is also one of the top Lyme Disease specialists in the country. Mom and I flew out to Texas in February, 2005. We planned to just be gone ten days. We were gone two years.
My Dad had to eventually bring me more clothes and my dog, Gizmo. I was not going to live in Texas without Gizmo! He was one of God's priceless gifts to me during my affliction. He was such a little trooper; he never left my side. My days were filled with so much pain, but he still managed to make me laugh every day. God sent me my little Gizzy for such a time as this. A few more of God's gifts to me were my parents, my brothers, and my very best friends Mari, Melissa, and Alan. Their support, their humor, and their faith have been a lifeline. The Lord has surely made a way for me to pass through this affliction. (Gizmo passed away three years ago. A piece of my heart died with him. He was 16 years old. He was the sweetest little thing God ever created. He never got to see me well. . .)
The first week in Texas, one doctor sent me to the hospital. He then sent me to a GI doctor to have my gallbladder taken out. It was diseased from the Lyme infection. I had been having gallbladder attacks for about a year. And since I was in such a weakened state, I had to be hospitalized for 4 days after the surgery.Then a few months later, the doctor realized I was too sick to tolerate the antibiotic program that is protocol for Lyme disease. I couldn't even tolerate the herbs or supplements given to me by the naturopathic doctors I saw in Texas. When I was 29, after two years in Texas, and having been treated by nine different doctors, Mom and I went home. I was still very sick, but the doctors had done what they could. The battle continued.
I want to begin my story with my salvation, because that is the most important thing that has ever happened to me!! I received Jesus Christ to be the Savior of my life, on Easter Sunday night, when I was 7 years old. Then when I was 11, I surrendered my life to Christ.
When I was 13, in 1991, I got bit by a tick on a camping trip up in Minnesota, where I grew up. That was a significant moment in my life because I believe that is when I was infected with Lyme disease. Shortly after that camping trip, our family moved to Pensacola, Florida. My Dad got a job coaching wrestling at Pensacola Christian College. Six months later, in January of 1992, I became ill. I was 14.
My first symptoms were intense fatigue and feeling like I had the flu. We thought it was mono, but the blood tests came back negative. As the intense fatigue and flu-like symptoms continued, I also developed severe leg pain. I could no longer walk without pain. Over the next 2 years, I found no help and no relief from the numerous doctors that I saw. They prescribed different drugs, ran tests, and did treatments on me. Everything from steroids to cortizone shots. I was in and out of hospitals. I only got worse and the medical bills got bigger.
When I was 16, I was admitted to the hospital for a week of tests. At that time I was diagnosed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD). We found out six years later that this was a misdiagnosis.
My name is Kim, and I’m a twenty-something, ex-vegetarian, gluten-intolerant, vegetable-loving, creative spirit Lymie living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I’m a natural health junkie and whole foods, sustainable living devotee. I love to cook, I love to write, I love to share knowledge. I believe in the innate ability of our bodies to heal. I believe in the power of the human spirit. I believe that despite all the sad and nasty stuff going on in this world, there is more beauty and joy than we can ever imagine. And I believe we each have the ability to make choices that ensure health and vibrancy for the future. There’s a lot of life to live, and ultimately we’re each in charge of how we live it.
I was overweight, struggled with persistent acne, eczema, hives, seemingly snowballing food, seasonal, and environmental allergies, constant stomach aches and digestive issues, depression, and nasty, recurring sinus infections. After receiving the first and second Gardasil vaccinations, all these issues seemed to amplify, leaving me debilitated with stomach pain and irregular digestion, suffering rapid weight loss, an absent menstrual cycle, and a host of other symptoms from poor coordination to hair loss, lethargy to vision problems. Since all my blood work, endoscopes, and CT scans came back normal, save some mild esophageal damage from acid reflux, my general practitioner suggested I stop eating acidic foods, and attributed the rest of the symptoms to IBS, stress, my running program, and too much caffeine. She said I was fine. I knew I wasn’t.
As I worked with a naturopath, acupuncturist, and other healing professionals to address Candidiasis, detox from the vaccine, intestinal parasites, heal my gut, and support my whole self, many things improved. I learned how to cook amazing food free of all the allergens that plagued me. I gained back weight, gained back energy, and gained back my sparkle and joy. Health issues I’d had for years – acne, terrible seasonal allergies, eczema – seemed to melt away. But despite so much improvement, I suffered cycles of recurring symptoms regularly. I started developing increasingly severe joint pain, fatigue and headaches. I noticed neurological issues and heart palpitations. I knew something else was still out of balance.
In the summer of 2009, things really started flaring up, and I got more concerned. My cousin had recently been diagnosed with Chronic Lyme Disease, and she expressed concern that my symptoms sounded like Lyme. Frustrated and desperate for answers, I decided to take her advice; I ran a Western Blot test for Lyme Disease through IGeneX, a state of the art testing laboratory for tick-borne illnesses.A few weeks later, on November 2, 2009, I got my answer. I have Chronic Lyme Disease.
Lyme Disease - the silent pretender and invisible enemy. Rarely deadly in and of itself, but leaving its mark just the same. It terrorizes body organs and leaves muscles weakened and writhing in pain. A bacteria which dons the robe of a virus, Lyme is a spirochete that drills its way through every cell of the body. It has the ability to transform and mutate into many various forms, hiding its ugly face from antibiotics. Its favorite mode of transportation is the insignificant deer tick, which is about the size of a period at the end of a sentence.
August 6, 2009
Mr. Borrelia came to visit early one morning while I was gathering clippings from my flowerbed for my sister's wedding. He was riding on the back of a spider rather than his usual vehicle and he failed to leave the target mark of alarm on my arm. He brought friends and set up house.
Two weeks later, I crashed into bed with the flu, a first for me. A week later came the sinus infection, the bladder infection and then the kidney infection. Two months down the road, I was admitted to the hospital with heart problems and blood pressure instability. Fainting every time I stood for more than five minutes and headaches bordering on migraines fast became a way of life. My church family swooped in for a rescue with prayers, meals and cards, lending support in the way only they could.
I was bitten by a tick when I was ten. It's the only tick bite I remember, though a large number of those with Lyme don't remember a tick bite. There's no way to know if this bite or another was the culprit. I do remember a rash on my hand the summer I was pregnant, and I now wonder if it was from a tick, but there is no way to know. I always had weird medical things happen as a kid though, so we have wondered if maybe it's been dormant for many years. Your immune system has an amazing ability to keep things in check (even if you've been given a taste of that forbidden formula). And your immune system is amazingly susceptible to stress, which arrived on my, well, ashy, crumbling doorstep when I was eight months pregnant.
I had Kellen and went into my six-week checkup, where they did a pap, which came back abnormal (yeah, my fall pretty much sucked), and gave me a flu shot. Four days later (and four days after returning to teaching) my face stopped working. I was home nursing Kellen (or trying) and tried to smile at him, at which point I realized I couldn't move the right side of my mouth. Earlier in the day I had noticed that it felt like I was talking with braces on, like my lips were having to make way for an obstruction on my teeth, despite not having had braces in well over a decade. That morning I drank orange juice that tasted dull as well as had a Starbucks sandwich that made me question their place as a food establishment. It turned out that my taste buds were not working on the right side. After I finished nursing Kellen I decided to go back to school to finish teaching. I was really scared but didn't want to deal with it at the moment (because the only two options I could think of were a stroke and brain cancer). As I was driving down the road I lost my ability to blink my right eye. I turned around, and we went to the hospital.
The good news is that it wasn't a stroke or brain cancer, though the way the Dr. told me it was "just" Bell's Palsy made it seem so benign--as though I hadn't just lost full functionality of one side of my face and now looked like this:
"Are you sure nothing else is wrong?" I asked the ER doc. I just couldn't fathom that the nerves in my face would stop firing just because they felt like it. The doctor assured me that nearly all cases of Bell's Palsy are spontaneous and have no other underlying cause than a small virus. (Had I lived in the Northeast, it is likely I would have been tested for Lyme then, as Bell's Palsy is common in Lyme and the first symptom of it moving into your brain, when things get really dicey.) They gave me anti-virals and steroids. (It was because of this I stopped breastfeeding.)
Dan and I decided to head down to San Diego. I had taken a leave of absence from work because I was overwhelmed. The stress of our house burning down in a fire and the rebuild was compounded by this new development, and I knew that I was spread too thin. It has always been hard for me to walk away, and while it was sad, I am proud of my ability to say, "I can't." We left the day after Thanksgiving, a trip that was nearly thwarted by an incredible and overwhelming sense of anxiety. I couldn't sit down at all because I felt so antsy and uncomfortable. It was one of the only times I've ever had the urge to scrub a floor. It's unknown if this was a natural progression of the Lyme or because I had been prescribed Zoloft to deal with the PTSD. It's been posited that SSRIs (selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors) may actually exacerbate Lyme symptoms in some people (many also find them helpful).
