For the last eleven years of my life, I’ve battled a debilitating yet misunderstood autoimmune disease called PANS. It’s a disorder where an infection or an environmental trigger confuses your immune system into attacking your brain. This leads to all sorts of problems like OCD, anxiety, depression, tics, involuntary movements, cognitive problems, and many more horrible things. It affects at least 1 in 200 people, but you’ve probably never heard of it. Many doctors haven’t, either.
It’s 6:00 on a Friday night, I’m drenched in sweat, sitting on my bed with no pants on, and mumbling nonsense. Tears are running down my face for no clear reason, and I feel outside myself, detached from reality. As my mom peeks into my room to bring medicine, I whisper that everyone hates me, warning that the Universe is out to get me. I have no idea why I’m saying or doing any of this—words are coming from my mouth and I can’t stop them. Continue reading “I Lost My Mind… But Haven’t Lost Hope”
On Thursday morning, I woke up and immediately knew something was very wrong. My whole body ached. I had an awful headache. I was dizzy. I was too nauseous to even think about food or water. It was that familiar set of symptoms that meant one thing: I was in for a terrible Lyme herx.
Ever since I announced my Lyme diagnosis, I’ve been inundated with questions from readers. While I’m not qualified to give anyone medical advice, I’ll gladly share my own personal experiences. Given the number of messages I’ve received, I figured I should answer the most common questions in a post for all of you, so here you go: Continue reading “In Response to Your Lyme Questions…”
“It’s Lyme disease.”
They were three words that shattered all of my expectations for recovery from PANS… Three words that I still struggle to accept… Three words that are going to change my life…
“Mom, I want to die!” I burst into the living room screaming, a look of sheer terror in my eyes.
“Please… Help me!” I plead as I crumple into a heap on the sofa, wailing and yelling at the top of my lungs.
Okay, I’m keeping it shorter this week, because I’m doing so well that I’ve been extremely busy! As I’ve said in the past, the better I’m doing, the less I tend to post and tweet, because I’m away from the blog living my life.
At 93 pounds, I was so miserable and malnourished that I didn’t even know how ill I was. At the time, when I found myself sitting in an infusion chair receiving my third IVIG, I silently wondered to myself what I was doing there. How could I have PANDAS if I wasn’t “that sick”? Why was I getting such a heavy-handed treatment? But with my weight nearing the so-called “starvation” range, many of my organs weren’t working properly anymore. My psychiatrist warned that I’d be in the hospital soon.
Today, just two weeks after my third IVIG, I’m happy to say I’ve made tremendous progress. I’m no longer afraid of food and calories, so I’ve probably gained back about half of the weight I lost. I’ve gotten strong enough to run (slowly). My POTS symptoms are basically gone, and my parents have told me that there’s life in my eyes again. Oh, and I’ve even finished all of the summer coursework for the classes I had to take incompletes in—including a twelve-page research paper!
So am I better now? Is life perfectly peachy now that I’ve had IVIG? Continue reading “IVIG #3: Third Time’s a Charm”
This week, I reached a turning point in recovering from my eating disorder.
Up until now, although I’ve known how destructive my restricting has been to my body and though part of me wanted to stop, anorexia had so much control over me that I wasn’t completely willing to give it up. I said a few weeks ago that I was going to start treatment for it, but honestly, I was so depressed the day of the appointment that I couldn’t get out of bed and just cancelled it.
