20 Years worth of Lyme and still going!!

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I thought I would write a note about my problems with lyme and what

I've been going through. Just a bunch of rambling I guess but here

goes...

I have had this disease for 20 years now. It has not only effected

me buy also my family.

I am very fortunate to have the greatest wife, son and parents that

stand with me in my

battle with this horrible illness. I am disabled and can no longer

work. I have many symptoms

and these are just a few. I have memory and comprehension deficits

along with vision, speech,

motor skills, tremors in my right hand, light sensitive, severe

muscle and joint pain, weakness,

have had several mini stroke type episodes, word finding skills,

depression, having trouble

walking due to severe pain and swelling in my hips and knees, using

my hands, balance,

bladder control and many more problems that I can go on and on

about. This has made

my life a living hell to put it mildly. I am on very heavy pain meds

just to be able to move

and they hardly even help at all. I can't go anywhere or do anything

most of the time.

The simple things that folks take for granted have become a major

struggle for me.

My wife is an angel who not only works, but she takes care of me and

is my voice to

the doctors and handles everything along with daily life with our 16

year old son, 2 dogs

and a cat and balances this with work that has her busy 7 days a

week. It has become

a disease-by proxy for her and she suffers and I feel helpless to do

anything. I am getting

worse all of the time and have have IV antibiotics through a

cathider that was in my chest.

I have lost my career, hobbies, doing things with my family and am

mostly usless.

I am a prisoner inside my own body with my windows being my eyes.

The doctors that

I have now are doing the best they can but having been ill this long

and with all of the damage

done to my brain and body, they can only try to make me as

comfortable as possible which

really is not very good at all, but they are trying. It's been a

very hard road but I am still

here. Maybe reading this will help others see that they are not

alone. Being a Lyme

sufferer is like being a small fish in a tank of all sharks. There's

not a lot of hope.

But you can never lose hope. I tell myself this and I go day to day,

love my wife

and son, and keep going. It beats the alternative. Well that's it

for now.

Thanks,

Rich