Hurry up and wait...

Here we are, hurry up and wait with SSI. They keep asking for more information by X date, then schedule MD appointments two weeks away. I must say, the guy handling my case is very polite and considerate for someone who will probably be declining my initial application for disability. After that, I'll have to get a lawyer involved who will then take 1/3 of the past income due for their services. Well, better 2/3 than nothing, but it still irks. How many people apply for disability or workman's comp who are really perfectly healthy and able to lead a normal life but who just want to sit on their butts and do nothing?

When I look back now, it's hard for me to believe that I used to be hyperactive. Now the closest I get is when  I empty out the dishwasher and restock it. After that I'm exhausted. I can't even contemplate working a 1 hour day, let alone 8. I've been told I shouldn't even worry about it but I fret nonetheless and have little else going on to keep me occupied. Did you notice how little good TV there is? That leaves the internet. I also recently got a device called Roku, which is supposed to allow you to project your internet stuff on your TV set. I'm going to give it a try and see what happens.

This past week I have been off all natural remedies because I spent the weekend before last sleeping about 12 to 20 hours a day and feeling crappy while I was awake. This was due to herxheimer, or die-off, reactions because, I think, I have been taking too much of the remedies without a break. I found out that natural remedies actually work better if you take time off from them periodically, unlike pharmaceutical meds which require you to continue taking them nonstop until the prescription runs out.  So I will be taking the remedies Monday through Friday and taking the weekends off so I'm not sick and exhausted all the time. This may mean that it will take longer to treat my conditions, but at least I won't be mistaken for a zombie in the apocalypse.

One good thing--even without the remedies, the skin parasites continue to die and come out of my skin. I would be more grossed out by it if I hadn't had to deal with it for years now and if I hadn't been a nurse and compelled to see all sorts of things that make this seem like small potatoes, relatively speaking. I can only assume that, if the parasites are dying, the lymes is also dying, since the same antibiotics that kill the parasite's vital bacteria also kills lymes. Also, my mental status and vision have been slowly improving over time and, while still not perfect, are much better than six years ago when I moved in with my elderly father who had to take care of ME instead of the other way around.

I have already started taking the teasel root, andrographis, and cat's claw elixers, along with a detox blend obtained from the same company. The teasel root and cat's claw are being tested for treatment of lymes and found to be promising. I am also taking Microlactin and Sea Buckthorne daily, with 4-8 ounces of colloidal silver twice a week. I think this is a potent cocktail.

It's funny--I've seen commercials for a special on the History Channel about the potential for pandemics to wipe out large segments of the world's population at one time. This makes me laugh because they talk about how any disease could be anywhere in the world in 8 to 24 hours. That is what I've been saying about the black fly that bit me and gave me the skin parasite. These flies are already in Africa, South America, Central America, the Carribean Islands, and the Middle East, so they're telling us that "we don't have that here"? BULLSH*T. The medical community doesn't want us to find out that it's here, it's in all our living and vacations spots, and anyone can get it. Remember how they denied HIV and AIDS for so long, calling it the "gay disease" or the "drug abuser's disease" until some hapless housewife acquired it from a roaming husband? It's the same thing here. Imagine the panic if people found out they could acquire a skin parasite that could potentially blind them over time and there is no cure for it? The only thing that helps is the same medication given to dogs to prevent heartworm and which I also used to keep the parasites from reproducing and spreading more than they already had.

Well, already tired and need to take a break from typing. I will continue later when I feel a little more alive.

"Captain, some dangerous non seqitors have been sighted! What should we do?"
"Phasers on fabulous, Mr Sulu!"

I suppose I should warn anyone reading this blog that it's gonna be weird. Mainly because I am. I've been weird all my life and, frankly, just learned to embrace it. The ADHD is part of it, but I just never really saw eye-to-eye with my peers growing up. I only had a few close friends and they were the unusual ones too. Got bullied a lot in high school  because of it. Looking back, I don't mind too much anymore because I believe that, after death, we are reborn into new bodies in order to learn things we can't learn as spirits. I also believe in karma, which means that those people who bullied me in school or have otherwise been not-nice people will probably come back as cockroaches. *squish*


My sister has a signature file that says something like "Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind". Using that logic, anyone who thinks I am trying to hurt or insult anyone with this blog obviously doesn't know me at all and, therefore, doesn't matter.  I have a button somewhere with the latin version of "Screw 'em if they can't take a joke", which basically matches my philosophy of "Don't take life so seriously. You're not going to get out of it alive anyway." So there. Nyah.

Mmmm...lo-cal ice cream bar--breakfast of champions. And that's because I feel sorta nauseous today. That happens when I'm having something called a Herxheimer reaction, or die-off crisis. I had a pretty good day yesterday, so I can pretty much predict that the next day will be crappy. Okay, let's all sing along with me...

           "I feel crappy, oh, so crappy, I feel crappy and snappy and blah!"

That used to make Dad laugh when I'd sing that on my bad days. I miss him. He was so supportive of my attempts to get diagnosed and treated and he, at 90 years old, used to take care of me--that's how bad it was. I promised him that I'd write a paper about my condition so that others wouldn't have to suffer like I've had to because of the ignorant boobs in the medical profession who A) can't differentiate Mononucleosis from Lymes Disease, and B) don't want to admit that a skin parasite found in third world countries like Africa, Mexico, and South America could possibly find its way into the USA. Sure, no such thing as tourism or illegal immigrants or international trade could possibly be responsible for a little black fly ending up in New Jersey, the swampland of the East Coast, right?  Pardon me while I clean up the sarcasm off the floor before it burns a hole in my downstairs neighbor's ceiling.

Just to clarify for those who don't know, I contracted lymes in March of 1995 (my friends in the Lunatyk Phrynge will remember it as the week before the Balticon when our presentation, "The Masque of the Red Death" was totally dissed for an award even though we won awards for workmanship and some crappy costume by a friend of a judge won an award. That one still pisses me off. Three bad judges, three more cockroaches).  It was misdiagnosed and, therefore, never treated. By the time I was diagnosed with lymes it was 2007 and antibiotics wouldn't do any real good because the disease was so deeply entrenched. Then, on vacation in August of 2003 at the Jersey Shore, I was bitten by a black fly. No big news there, but about a week or two later I started developing red, itchy bumps on my arm where the bite was, which then opened up into non-healing sores. No doctor knew how to treat it, so it just spread all over my body. I even started to lose my eyesight at one point. I did lots and lots of research on the web until I finally figured out, through a painstaking process of elimination, that I did, indeed have lymes (this was years before my diagnosis) and that I had contracted something called Morgellon's disease, which accounted for the skin ulcers and visual problems and which had no cure. However, on further research, I determined that Morgellons and River Blindness have the same symptoms that I have and that River Blindness, otherwise known as Onchocerciasis, can be treated by tetracycline, which also kills lymes.

This is good, you think. This can be cured, right? Uh, no, sorry. As I said before, the lymes is deeply entrenched and, while a short course of tetracycline did save my eyesight, I couldn't find a doctor to prescribe it for me long-term and in high enough dose to make a real difference. After all, new lymes patients are treated by intravenous tetracycline, something that wasn't done for me. After much research and experimentation, and some advice from knowledgeable friends and relatives, I started basically throwing the kitchen sink of alternative medicine at these conditions. So far, they seem to be helping in the long run, except that they cause the die-off reaction that I mentioned earlier and the change is slooooow. So, to make a long story short (yeah, I know, too late), I'm herxing (as we call it) and tired and grouchy, etc, etc, etc.

Anyhow (one of my favorite words, since I tend to change topics often), here I am back at the keyboard, watching TV and hoping that my new dvd recorder will play my BBC dvd titles. The old one didn't but it was over 6 years old and I was told that some of the formats had changes a bit. I especially want to be able to watch "Sherlock" and "Mrs Bradley Mysteries" w/ Dame Diana Rigg of "The Avengers" fame (no, the old one, not the superhero one).

Actually, speaking of which, I just ordered the dvd of "The Avengers", which I haven't seen but I've heard great things about. I've already seen "Thor" and will buy it just so I can rewind Thor without a shirt and just about any scene with Loki in it. >drool< Hey, I may be middle-aged, but I know eye candy when I see it. I wonder where I can find a nice middle-aged viking...

Need some  rest right now, will be back. This beats just sitting in a lounger feeling rotten.