I am often asked about what Lyme disease is like. I am no doctor, medicine woman, or trained professional when it comes to infectious diseases, but I am an expert in one area - me. After refusing to listen to my body's desperate plea for attention early on, I've become an excellent bio-listener. My fragile vessel will whimper, moan, groan, yelp, bawl, howl, snarl, sigh, gasp, and cry to tell me what I need or how I feel.
Fatigue - This is perhaps my most crippling symptom. A lot of sources say that Lyme will make you feel like you have the flue, just without the coughing and sneezing. I find this to be a rather boring description, however accurate. Here's some more creative descriptions for your understanding, dear.
( ^Me when fatigued. Picture not mine...thanks Google Images! )
It's that feeling when you're alarm is going off in the morning, but you're not well rested and you fumble to hit the snooze. Imagine that state of being for a moment. Recall the lack of adequate blood flow to your brain to process everything, the weakness in your arms (arms that feel as heavy as iron rods), and the uncoordination of the fingers.
It's that feeling when you stand up too fast after sitting for a long time when the blood is rushing around, and you're completely lacking in strength.
It's feeling as though something has changed the very blood in your veins into lead, heavy as it slushes from heart to limbs without giving power to the muscles that are too tired to move.
Some days, it feels like that every single time I stand...and the feeling doesn't go away. It is so heartbreaking for me on a bad fatigue day and be unable to sprint a few steps to catch up with friends in the hall, sing a whole song, take the stairs, stand up for rehearsal, go to meetings after a certain hour, or other simple tasks without burning out and withering. This summer, my friends wanted to go shopping and out on walks through downtown, but I couldn't. I knew it would use me up for the rest of the day. All I could do was sit and watch old seasons of Smallville. When I know there is something I absolutely need to do, I save my energy for that day to accomplish that task. Often that means being vastly unproductive the rest of the day. As you can imagine, this is making college life really, really difficult!
Can't you just have another cup of coffee and move on? Nope. Caffeine only works up to a certain threshold (about 1.5 cups, or 2 cups of black tea). After that it just makes me ADD and even more uncoordinated with slight tremors in the hands. It has gotten the the point where my friends now know Lyme's as "Old Lady Syndrome" because between the joint pain and fatigue, I shuffle around like dear sweet great grandma when it gets really bad. Joint pain, however, I'll post on another time.
All my love,
~Melissa.
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