Praising God for my bad news

Quick summary for anyone not following every post-
Tuesday I had a bite like mark on my arm. This developed into a bullseye rash. Along with it came extreme stiffness, severe fatigue, muscle and joint pain and weakness, chills and headache... unlike my "normal" symptoms. Thursday I went to the doctor. I suspected lyme disease but my doctor claimed lyme never happens here, probably just an infection. He put me on 2 weeks antibiotics and ran some blood tests to check for lyme.

Note- lyme often will not show positive in a blood test even if you have it. If it does happen to show positive it almost always will not show for at least 4-6 weeks after infected.

2 weeks of antibiotics for lyme disease, especially with as severe as my symptoms were and progressing so quickly, would not nearly be enough. There is a huge problem of regular md's not being knowledgeable in lyme, refusing lyme as a possibility, not treating lyme properly. If you are interested in knowing more, watch this video. It's as long as a movie but it's worth it to learn more.

I very quickly dove into research on lyme and reaching out to the lyme community. I did this because of my history of medical problems and the treatment or lack there of that I received. I knew treatment for lyme had to be quick and aggressive. If it's not quick and aggressive, and even sometimes if it is, lyme can turn into a chronic disabling condition- even worse than MG or POTS.

I research everything because I can no longer trust doctors. I can no longer trust doctors because of going 2.5 years undiagnosed with MG and 3.5 years undiagnosed with POTS. During those years I was misdiagnosed more times than I could count, put on more inappropriate medications than I could count. Those medications caused additional problems, resulting in hospital stays and further decline. I research because I have to be my own advocate. No one else can feel what's going on inside my body. I've come to learn my body very well and I have to look after it the best I can. We're only given one.

So anyways, today I receive a call from the nurse saying my blood tests results are in. Now all this time this may sound crazy, but I have been praying to God if I do in fact have lyme disease please Lord give me a positive blood test so the doctor will properly treat me. Well, hallelujah Praise the Lord!! I have a positive blood test!!! How that is possible just two days after symptoms started, I have no idea other than the power of prayer. So my doctor is now changing my 2 week treatment to 6 weeks. Normally I would say I hate medication and want nothing to do with it, but this is something needing to be aggressively attacked to try to rid it from my body.

Still there are concerns. My doctor will not put me on more than 2 pills a day. 3-4 is recommended. He also still isn't knowledgeable in it. My doctor didn't test for any co-infections that ticks can also give you. Those can be just as serious as well as sometimes fatal. I should find an LLMD- lyme literate md- specialized in treating lyme properly, but they almost never take insurance. Again its back to politics and such in the medical industry. Watch that video. So do I take these 6 weeks and hope that's enough and that I have no co-infections? Or do I pay out of pocket, which could be a whole heck of a lot, to go see an LLMD and do more testing? I guess I'll keep praying about it.

The good news is the lyme community tells me I'm one of the "lucky" ones... I actually got a rash, noticed the rash, saw the doctor while I had the rash, the doctor acknowledged lyme as a possibility, my blood test came back positive. I was told those things rarely ever happen especially not all of them together. So Praise God!

This has kicked my butt pretty hard. This fatigue is absolutely horrible. And it has set off my MG and POTS in a bad flare. It's actually making me appreciate having "just" MG, POTS, etc. etc. etc. But now I get to add Lyme officially to that list. All these things try to take me down on a daily basis. Sometimes it's hard just to sit up. I feel so under attack. But I just continue to rebuke the devil in Jesus' name and commit my life to Christ. I know I probably wouldn't be in as deep of a relationship with God as I am now had I been healthy, so in that regard these illnesses are a gift. Praise God in ALL things, not just what we see as good things. So I'm praising God for my bad news, not only because it resulted in better treatment, but because God is always good. I just ask that He please help me through this and out of it so I may live a better quality of life while remaining close to Him.

Thanks for reading, thanks for learning, and thanks for considering a donation to the MG walk I will be doing later this month :)

God bless.