But I do remember when my symptoms first struck: November 1994.
I nodded, impressed.
Several weeks later, fatigue became the least of my problems.
Worse, I had heart palpitations and dizzy spells several times a week.
Was that supposed to make me feel better?
“Maybe your feelings of rejection are showing up in physical ways,” one friend suggested.
It got me doubting my own sanity.
True, my thoughts were often so jumbled I couldn’t focus on a simple TV sitcom.
I frequently called my parents, crying, “What’s happening to me?”
They had much sympathy but few answers.
Determined to find help, I sought out several second opinions during the next few months.
An Ayurvedic healer instructed me to have more sex.
(Would that I had the energy!
Plus, my new boyfriend had dumped me.
Not that I blamed him: I’d tried to hide my symptomswhich made me seem flaky.)
A doctor my parents recommended implied I was genetically prone to feeling crappy.
She prescribed drugs for anxiety and depression, and they helped me sleep.
But my symptoms waxed and waned, and inevitably I returned to my default condition: sick and tired.
Lyme came up the first time in 1996.
I visited a rheumatologist, who’d had the disease himself.
After hearing my symptoms, he ordered a blood test to look for signs of the Lyme bacterium.
“But I’ve never had a bull’s-eye rash,” I said.
But my body aches worsened.
After months of no improvement, I quit taking prescription pillsand seeing doctorsaltogether.
I lost faith in Western medicine.
Meanwhile, my social life was all but nonexistent.
“Are you angry with me?”
I finally asked during a phone call.
Her response shocked me.
I can’t feel sorry for you anymore."
I hung up and sobbed, afraid that my friend had blurted out what others were thinking.
Somehow I managed to land and keep a great job (at SELF!
In January 2003, after a seven-year hiatus from doctors, I decided to see one more.
“I think I can help you,” he said.
He didn’t accept insurance, and the cost of the specialized tests he ordered was about $1,500.
My health is worth going into debt for, I rationalized.
I pulled out a credit card.
“That’s unbelievable!
I tested negative for Lyme years ago,” I reminded him.
He explained that few tests detect the actual Lyme bacterium.
Instead, blood tests look for antibodies to the bacterium, and these measures aren’t foolproof.
My future was bright, I told myself as I washed down the pill each day.
Right before Thanksgiving 2003, however, I was leveled by what I thought was a flu.
It confined me to my bed for days.
I hurried to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.
My left eyelid wasn’t moving.
Neither was the left side of my mouth when I smiled.
Oral antibiotics resolved my Bell’s palsy after a month, but other symptoms came and went.
For three months, I trotted around with my beloved life-support system at my side.
(I don’t spend much time in the woods these days, for obvious reasons.)
(See “If I Knew Then What I Know Now…”.)
Photo Credit: Getty Images
