I have Lyme Borreliosis. Spirochetes have been living and multiplying in my body since November 10, 2008, almost 2 years. Why was I not diagnosed before now?
It's in what I did not say.
It's in what I said that distracted my doctor from the problem.
It's in fear, embarrassment, and finally in feeling powerless and defeated by my provider's absolute certainty that a test would be pointless. And in the end, she was right.
Testing me for sero-reactivity was pointless. But for reasons quite beyond her knowledge or understanding of this debilitating infection.
[edited below during COVID-19 pandemic, Feb 3 2021]:
Is it easier to simply give up when a test for infection gives results one knows to be false or to fight it out, insist the test is wrong and risk being thought a hypochondriac or - possibly worse - to risk being proven right? Unlike the Lyme experience, this time I did eventually go back for a re-test when distant friends and a state-funded nurse on-call all insisted that my life was in danger. And much to my surprise (and the surprise of the doctor who performed the test - correctly this time) the result proved that the illness I had been battling for weeks was, indeed, COVID-19. It made little or no difference to my treatment. My doctor said "Whatever you are doing, just keep doing it. We have nothing." But it made a huge difference to my emotional state and allowed me, finally, to ask for help without having to skirt around the reason.
The real purpose for this update is to check out the "edit" function on blogger. And it is a bit of practice to help me get back into this world of written words which has been such a comfort for so many years and which has been lost now for too long. I want to come back to writing, to the selfish, personal, useless setting down of thoughts on a page. This, my chocolate, my love, my indulgence.
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