like it shouldn't be week two

.....of my off weeks.  For the last month or two, as soon as I hit the Monday after my two weeks of meds, I feel pretty good.  The lymphatic drainage massage has helped and I seem to have usually detoxed pretty well so that by the second Monday of my two weeks off of meds, I am feeling great.  I start to plateau on the Sunday before I start meds up again.

But this round?  I have felt more run-down than usual.  Super sleepy which is not normal for me (I have energy problems but not sleepy problems), minor pain in my joints, slow brain, and low low energy.

It's been a huge disappointment.  It always is when things have been going great for a while.  This is the first "off weeks" of a new protocol.  So I guess I can blame that.  There was also a dosage mix-up two weeks ago where I took double the dose of one med all week (not entirely my fault since a nurse accidentally took my word for it when I called with a question about it instead of checking with the doctor).

But today, the first day of my second off week, in which I "should" be energetic and getting my house ready for Thanksgiving company, I am literally laid up on the couch with a knee and ankle that feel as though they are about to burst at any moment.  Have you ever had that throbbing joint/muscle pain that just feels like it's going to explode?  I've got two Lidoderm patches on my body and I may give in and just take some of the strong pain meds my doctor has prescribed for times like these.

Wow, it is so hard to find the joy in this.  My friend from out of state is here and I had hoped so much that instead of her just coming to help me (which she has), that since it was my "off weeks", we'd be playing it up.  We have had chances to do fun things but not in the way that I had hoped my body would feel while doing them.  We've gone shopping together, we went to Sea World with the rest of the family (me in the wheelchair), and we've gotten to enjoy a lot of Netflix together.

I think of all my major complaints that plague me - low energy, pain, and brain fog - it's hardest to find thankfulness in pain.  And I don't mean headaches and little joint pains here and there.  It's the blaring, loud, takes-you-off-your-feet pain that seems to keep me at a loss for God-ful thoughts.  I try to recall verses of encouragement and I just come up blank.

But I can remind myself of truths - that God hasn't abandoned me.  That He allows these trials for reasons we may never know, but that He'll never give us more than we can handle in them. That He is sovereign.  And that He is the true Comforter.

So while it's confusing to me in the scheme of my course of Lyme treatment to have a "set back", I have to just keep remembering that for Lyme, this is "normal", and that God is with me in every valley and every peak.

And for a laugh - this is what I look like when I think I'm taking a picture of sea lions but really
my camera phone is on reverse so it's taking a picture of me. :)