We took a walk on Monday -- that was my first treatment day. I felt enough energy. We took another walk today -- on the second treatment day of the week. Baby steps --not gonna say they were long ones. But it heartens me to see that my body is bouncing back. I can feel terrible at the end of the day and after I sleep on it, it can be a whole new day (most of the time). This is huge. Not every day is like that. Not every morning can I wake up "afresh". But more and more days I can. I'm so thankful. We are noticing so much more improvement.
The girls love getting outside and part of the whole "sick-mom guilt" I get from this illness is that I can't give them the things that other kids get regularly from their mom. Some days the best I can do for THEM is to watch MYSELF and take care of myself by hibernating until one of them needs something. But I know it doesn't look like I'm helping them in their little eyes. All they see is "Mommy can't talk to you right now. You need to go play over there."
So I've been so thankful these days to have a few "mom things" that I can do. They aren't as good as what other moms can do but they mean oh-so-much to me. Our ten minute walks, reading ONE book to Georgie, playing ONE game like pat-a-cake with Olivia.
Soon I hope I can cook for them and my husband and just do more normal "mom things". But also lately instead of wishing and hoping for things that may take a while to come, I'm just really relishing any day that I can have that is better than yesterday's.
this makes me SO SO glad :) and I love your grateful perspective on this, treasuring the small, yet so significant stuff.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your struggles and victories. I was just diagnosed with Lyme on Monday, thinking that It was related to a tick bite from last august. After I read about all of your unexplained symptoms I realized it might be related to a rash I had in 2006 (at the time I thought it was ringworm).
ReplyDeleteI have an 11 month old whom I breastfed up until my diagnosis. Did you have your kids tested? How did you make that decision?
Thanks, Libby for stopping by. My prayers go out to you as you start the "lyme journey". I hope you recover quickly and get rid of the nasty bacteria soon! I know it's hard to fight the disease and have an 11 month old!
ReplyDeleteMy kids have not been tested. What my doctor told me is that we should go ahead and just wait until symptoms start to present themselves (which may never happen). So we are just watching them both carefully. My doc said not to "worry" about little symptoms here and there and always have a mindset of "they have Lyme" because that could definitely not be the case. So we are just enjoying the girls and praying they will sail through their life without Lyme and if in fact they start to have symptoms, we're happy to know what to do now about it!
This was a great post for someone who is chronically ill! i love your perspective.
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