I Am Host To A Wily Beast

Today is the last day of summer.  We ate the remainder of it at the fair last night- mostly cotton candy and popcorn with a few maple creamees on the side.  We might jump some cliffs today but the clouds of school are hanging pretty low.  And something called sock-her starts tonight.   The boys are buying cleats...again.  It happens way too often around here.

We've had a pretty eventful couple of weeks.  It all started when these guys turned 8.

The goggles, I'd like to report, have not been chewed by Bee (yet).

The reading lamps, I'd like to report as well, have not been used (yet).  Cripes all mighty making these boys read is like pulling out their toe nails one by one.

Well, they got some pretty sweet swag- boots and camelbacks and....

the worst looking chocolate cake I've ever made.   Well, for some reason EIGHT comes with the right to put your hands in your pants when you're sitting on the couch watching a movie with your mother.  It also gives you the right to look at your muscles more often and to start smelling your body odor.  I know, who knew, right?

Two days after that my husband turned 40.  FORTY.  Now, he already plays with his dingaling and looks at his muscles and smells his own body odor, but all that doesn't matter because in case you haven't noticed he's HOT. 

And so with the help of Dirty Steve, I was able to plan a weekend in Bristol, RI with the majority of the Mothership, one of whom (the dingaling on the far left) came all the way from L.A. to touch Paul Bunyan's muscles.  They sure do love to do that.  And Jarhead, although he drove from Lake George, is from Aspen, CO and Timmy James Hender Fender, although he drove from Newport, RI, is from Lake Forest, IL.  And Stinky Jon drove down the next day from N.H.

We ate a few of these, dipped in a little bit of that, with a bunch of that on the side and we slurped it down with a few of those.  

 Definitely just what Paul Bunyan wanted- a weekend with his favorite friends, in one of his favorite places, eating his favorite things and being....

young at heart.

 Four days after that we swam in a dinner of tomatoes at the Kitchen Table Bistro's annual tomato dinner.  FOURTEEN years of marriage.   That means we've earned the right to now publicly display our affection and touch each other wherever we want when we're watching a movie on the couch.  It also means that we've been married long enough to feel sad about losing Paul Bunyan's wedding band this summer at the beach but not overly concerned about replacing it right now.  He says he won't pretend NOT to be married when he's at the bars downtown dancing like a college boy but then again he has all those muscles now.

Two days after that- after being off my antibiotics for a week- the wily lyme beast reared its ugly head.  Right back where I started two plus years ago.  It was laying dormant for this whole year.  I'm trying to find hope in striped rocks on the road as I pull up Japanese Knotwood roots to pulverize into a remedy.  I'll eat octopus if I have to.  Anything to kill the beast inside me before it kills me.   I'm trying to stay hopeful and to remember that EIGHT plus FORTY plus FOURTEEN is a big number to fight for. 

We're getting closer....

It's like the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers here right now.   Things are coming at us from both sides.  We're still reeling from the effects of last weekend (and when I say "we" I'm referring to "me") when "we" had these lovely sweet lovely sweet crazy ten year olds over for a sleepover. 

And over here to the right we're gaining the view and losing some red pines in preparation for a very exciting project I have in the works.

And as you can see over here to the left I won't be able to enjoy the new view of the valley because one tiny little Bee is using her paws to request entrance into the house.  Exhibit A is evidence of her lack of training and her overall general feelings of ownership over this kingdom.

And over here to the left are pieces of evidence of two very cute identical twin boys whom I have not seen in over ONE YEAR but with whom I'll be visiting with on Thursday.  It's always a sad day to visit with babies who don't recognize you or your smell.  But I can't wait to smell them.  However, they might be a little sketched out if I come too close too soon.  I'll take it slow.

And over here to the right is the one year anniversary of Liebe's death, which is right around the corner.  Still waiting to hear from the artist who I hired out to paint an oil on canvas print of Liebe.  I'll keep you posted.

And over here to the left is the last two months I'm going to be "working" as their "nanny".  I've fallen in love with these kids and won't let any of them forget my smell or the fact that I'm their second mom.  And that's my final answer.

And over here to the right you have my back fat.  All 39 years of it combed into one shot.  It's right out there in plain view.  No, I'm just joshin'.  Well, no I'm not joshin' about the back fat.  It's just that I'm posting this photo because I think, if you look closely enough, you can see the tick bite on my back.  And today just happens to be the 2 year anniversary of when I found that tick on my back.  Well, I'll clarify here and say that Claire found that tick on my back.  And I just knew- you know how you know when you know?  Well, I just knew.   And I'm REALLY REALLY close to writing that post to say thank you to EVERYONE who had anything to do with my road to recovery but I'm not quite there.  SO SO close.  It's hard to believe it's been two years and I'll be glad when all is said and done but I'll let you know when we cross that bridge.  Over the Mississippi.  Or the Missouri.  Which ever one we're at when we're there.

And last but not least is this crazy adventure over here to the left.  Two baby piglets.  Too scared to come out.

 

One is polka dot.  And I'm not going to tell you what Claire named them because some day you might come to my house and have pulled pork sandwiches or the best maple ginger breakfast sausage you've ever ever had and you won't want to know you're eating Wilbur.  Ah, shit I told you.

But I know you're still gonna wanna come.  Because I'm getting closer to becoming a true homesteader.  And a hussy.  And I know you won't want to miss that.

I'm Telling You...It's God's Will

Helloooo? Are you there God? It's me Margaret. No seriously. Where have you been? I've been waiting here for you, for like days. But you kept not showing up. And so I was all, like, 'whatever.' And so I took off and became stuck like a piece of beef jerky. Up all inside the space between my teeth. I tell ya, this living life stuff is hard work. So...how have you been? I've been good. I've been good. I'm sorry, I just had to say that twice. But seriously, I've been good.

I'll explain why. I have this neighbor. She used to work for a homeopathic vet and so she's really a wealth of knowledge in the homeopathic remedy field. She has offered to help my garbage guzzling Lab when she's had a pancreatic belly ache. But it didn't seem to work- she still dug herself a hole in the dirt to crawl into and sulk. Kelly has spritzed her Rescue Remedy at foaming alpacas who are stretched flat out on their bellies getting their hairs clipped. But they still spit anyway. She has most recently sent down a tiny brown bottle full of tiny white balls of something called Merc. V. It was supposed to heal Liebe's red ulcers on the roof of her mouth. But what Liebe really needed was a $600 tooth extracted and a few doses of prednisone to get her immune system in check. Kelly kept hoping that something would work immediately and that all pain and suffering would be cured from the moment the tiny white balls hit the saliva in the mouth. And that I would be sold on the benefits of homeopathy.

I have to be honest.
I was skeptical all along.
Until now.

After 8 months of antibiotics, I finished my last dose of doxycycline at the end of February. As I approached the finish line I was taking 400 mg every day. And I was scared shitless because I still felt the symptoms in my spine- mostly a numbing pain. I knew that it took only about 3 weeks of being off antibiotics (in early June) for the spirochetes to spread from my joints, into my spine, and up into my brain. So, needless to say, I was very frightened of being back where I was last June...unable to talk, write, think. So I was grasping for any doctor who would give me more. MORE! But I had exhausted all my resources and so was wondering where could I turn. No doctors in the area will treat this disease as it should be treated and so I was considering heading out of state. But I wanted to try something first, something I had heard about from another sufferer who had beat Lyme with an herbal remedy.

And so I took a risk, always thinking positively that if she could win this battle (along with thousands like her) with this remedy, then I could too.


Here's my line-up. I'm not really sure what's in it. Maybe frog's feet and crow's balls, but whatever it is I've been told it's God's Will to Heal and that everything that makes up the remedy has been harvested with prayer, so I'm feeling a little more confident that He's backing me here.

And here's the thing. I've never felt better (well, since the f-ing tick bit me). But the shit is working. Knock on wood because I'm still in disbelief and I don't want to jinx myself. So now if I follow the protocol I need to do a few coffee enemas, lots of saunas, a few Epsom salt baths, and possibly a 7 day "fast" where I only eat maple syrup and juice. Hhmm. Yea.

We'll see.

But there are some other positives. Here I am on my last day of Doxy:


I mean really- look at that honker. I was like Rudolph for 8 straight months....even with 100 block. Every kid who came near me pointed a nasty dirty finger in my face and said, "hey. You have a red nose." No shit Sherlock. I've burnt fingers and toes and ear lobes.

And another positive is that I got juices back. Ladies, you all know what I'm talking about. Praise the good Lord I Probably Should Believe In Right About Now.

Sooooo now I'm on an herbal remedy kick.

I got ass cracks in my fingers. A hairy chin. A daughter with an attitude. If it's God's Will to Heal, then bring on the healing. There must be a remedy for any of it. All of it!




There has got to be a remedy for this Spring Rite of Passage.




How can we heal this ugly Mohawk illness?




And what about my propensity to eat a whole bag of potato chips in one sitting?




Or what about the nail biting habit?




Or how to fix his baldness? Oh wait, I find that really sexy. Never mind. Well, we need to find a way to stop the head from sweating at night.

And how to stop making the dogs eat trash?
Or (at least) how to stop them from eating cat poop?
And how to make the spawn all kind and considerate to each other?
And how to get rid of anxiety?
And how to make me less lazy?
And how to help me quit mayo?

There's got to be a good remedy for it all- harvested with prayer from Mother Earth.

I know. I know. Let's get real. So seriously, if a lightning bolt struck me down tonight...

and burned the shit out of my skin, I've got an aloe plant growing on my windowsill.

My Last Day of Sunshine is Tomorrow

For the last two weeks, I have been pampered. I have been allowed to go out with my husband every night (if I wanted to), sleep in until I wanted to, exercise if I wanted to. I have not had to do the grocery shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry, the entertaining. I have only been required to shower my children with admonitions, or praise, depending on the need. I have only, in the last two weeks, been required to go tubing every now and again, eat lots of walleye sandwiches, and drink many a Long Island Iced Teas (if I wanted to). I've had to clean a few smoothie faces and brush a few teeth. But that is all.

I have been a spoiled woman. And I hate it. Nothing in my past has led me to think I deserve this. I have been a stay-at-home mom for the last 8 years. Just last year I dabbled in part time work, a little. I have not had to work full-time and overtime as a parent. I've not had to work traffic control. I don't deserve a two week vacation from life. I just don't.

And yet. It happens. And every year I return home to all the chores I wasn't good at before I left. And I can't get to the dishes. And I can't unpack. And I can't get to the vacuuming. I can't quite get the laundry done. I can't get through the pile of mail. I can't get dinner on the table. I can't get the shopping done.

It takes me awhile.

But I'll get to them. Especially if you come to visit. Then I'll have a reason.

But I've had a really good homecoming. Here's a list of why:

1.

He's still alive. And the pink fiber awaits me. It will be a happy day when I get to start spinning it.

2. We have eggs. small eggs. but eggs none-the-less. Yay chickens.

3. We also have a rooster that crows. He didn't do this before we left. He is too big for the pot. He has furry feet. Do you want him? I won't tell you he starts crowing at 5:30 a.m.

4.

We have bat shit. It's a reason to celebrate. I was worried about our resident bat. I didn't see his/her shit this year on the porch. I'm not sure this is his/her shit, but it's another sign that life goes on. And if it's another bat's shit...welcome. Eat those bugs. I give you permission. And it's okay if you hibernate in my attic. Just don't come "in".

5. We have cherry tomatoes.

6. We have zucchini the size of Paul Bunyan's arms. Perfect for bread, cake, fritters. I'll be motivated soon. Do you need some?

7. We have cukes. I'm a pickling crazy hussy. Today I pickled dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, dilly beans, and later tomorrow I'm going to pickle my spawn's toes. They're soaking overnight in a salt water bath.

8. My spawn have discovered the Bridge to Terabithea. They have a rope down the clift (Auggie's word) to the stream across the road from us. Today, they packed bologna sandwiches and grapes and ate on the smooth rocks in the stream. No one came home crying.

9. Paul Bunyan's birthday was two days ago and we went out to eat on a date even though we didn't "need" to. I ate a pig's face. It was all boiled down and soft and tasted great with honey mustard. But I was picking it out of my teeth all night. He turned 28.

10. My friend Charlotte had her birthday the next day and I forgot to wish her a happy birthday because I'm selfish like that and right now I'm only thinking about myself and the weeds in my garden. But I love her dearly.

11. Today we went blueberry picking. The last day before the last day. I'm going to make buckle and muffins and cake and ice cream. And I won't do any of the dishes.


12. This might be the thing that has made me the happiest (and possibly the thing that I missed the most):



Miss Liebe's snoring at the foot of my bed. The comforts of home. I know you understand.


***the meaning behind the title of this post is that I am switching my antibiotics back to Doxycycline from Clarithromycin and will no longer be able to bask in the sun. I still have scars on my fingers and toes from the third degree burns I received from the first round of antibiotics. I will cover my extremities better this time and might have to go into hiding. But I'm going to kill these fuckers if it's the last thing I do. I will poke my head out soon, just in time for the snow to fall and for me to turn my face towards the sun as I wave my arms and legs in the snow like an epileptic...all for the sake of fun. Wish me luck.

A Few Rationalizations

I watched my mother drive over the curb as she pulled away from the Mobil station at Exit 20 off I-87 in Lake George, N.Y. yesterday, with my three kids in the back.

And since then I have been listening to bull frogs, reading magazines in the hammock, and picking my nose. It's been a wonderful thing and I think I'll do it until Thursday at 2 p.m. when I have to go pick them back up. I might have to throw some weeding in there, but we'll see.

However, all this quiet time has my mind meandering in and out of self pity. You see, I'm herxing. I'm a herxer. I'm having a Herxeimer Reaction. Which supposedly is all good. It's a sign that my antibiotics are working and that I'm killing all those f-ing spirochetes swimming around in my brain. Besides my friend dizziness, I'm feeling a tingling sensation in the back of my head starting to introduce herself. And the feeling puts me back to a night I spent with the Goddess Who Is Gone, who wasn't at the time gone, but almost gone.

We were at the dark and smoky bar The Green Room. It wasn't smoky, but it would have been if there wasn't the no smoking law in restaurants. I wasn't looking that sexy, but I would have been if I wasn't sitting next to the Goddess, who sat right under the hanging spotlight over the bar. It highlighted the golden waves in her hair and her thin wrists and the way she held her martini glass like it was an extension of her hand. As she was talking in her enrapturing manner, I sat drinking my beer looking slumpy, but listening so very intently to her stories. She told of a visit to N.Y.C. to see her friend Michael where she competed in and won a competition involving a banana and her mouth and some embellishment. Ironically, she had just left her husband for a woman. She had turned her life upside down for love and blow job competitions.

And I was in awe. And she went on. And I drank more beer. Lately, I've been recalling her description of what if felt like to have an orgasm (sorry if this is too much information for people...stop reading now and hang a left to your nearest safe blog) with her new girlfriend. I still remember how she held her hands up in the air to help me visualize the feeling. She said how it started in her spine and slowly moved up the back of her neck and then at climax the tingling sensation exited her body at the back of her head. She lost words to describe it and became speechless.

I've never experienced that kind of orgasm, but now when I'm using visualization to get rid of the dead and dying spirochetes in my head, I think of the Goddess Who is Gone lying on her back with her custom-made red leather strap-on on and I picture those fuckers exiting my body in an out of this world, orgasmic way. All for the sake of love.

But I've also when wondering WHY? Why this happened to me? I think it's a normal reaction when someone gets sick. I have to find something I can take away from all this later. I'm looking for an answer. Most people turn to God. But I've got no formal training in that. I've only got four leaf clovers and my innate sense of trying rationalize everything.

Here are some of my attempts at rationalization:
1. I've worked for a family the last couple of months as a doula. He is a Buddhist. So they, very naturally, asked each and every carpenter ant who marched across their floors during an infestation to, "please, kindly leave." I tried not to let them see me squash them as they came down my path. But it made me think about all the insects I've killed in my lifetime and how as a little girl I would be woken up by the buzzing in my ear of the mosquitoes in my room. And how I would get up to shut my door to trap them and turn on the light to see them and then how I would smash them so hard against the wall that it would leave a blood splatter any crime scene investigator would be excited about. I would leave the dead carcasses there so the mosquitoes at the screen buzzing to come in might smell their dead brothers. Or, as of late, I've thought about the number of leeches I've killed in the pond and how I don't stop to apologize to any of them before slipping them into my salt water death bath. Or how I've actually considered making a high-end fertilizer to sell from their dead and decaying bodies. All of this done, without once showing remorse or regret, which the Buddhist's think might save your soul if you happen to take one, under foot, by accident. I am doomed.

2. This happened to me because I would have been really really sad if it happened to anyone else in my family. That's including my dogs.

3. This happened to me because I need to learn that beer is not that good for you and that I need to start really taking care of my body (thinking about what I put into it) and being healthy (exercising a little more)...as I (hmpf) approach 40.

4. This happened to me because once when I was in 5th grade I stole some notecards and pens from the supply closet.

5. Mostly though, I think this happened to me so that I can learn, once again (albeit a little hard), that I can't control the world even though I think I can.


However, I still have my palm, which was read in the summer of 1992 by that salty mystical lady on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, N.J.in her cave of an office and which says "I will be healthy."

And for my 37th Birthday...

I got a new pair of Lucky Jeans for my birthday. They fit like a glove, which is hard for me to say about jeans. I also got 4 new apple trees, installed. Oh, and I also got lyme disease.

I knew the very moment Claire discovered the tick on my back that it would be a ten second period of my life that I would never forget- how she said in surprise, "Mommy, you have a bug on your back and there is a red ring around it," how the late morning light was shining through the windows in my bathroom, and how the boys were watching me get dressed after my shower, and how we were all going to leave on an airplane to Arizona when I was ready.

I knew in my heart of hearts that it wasn't good. I procured two 100 mg of doxycyclin that day. And five days later my joint pain surfaced. It arrived slowly like a bad cold comes first to your throat. But then it started to get worse, and it didn't take long for me to put two and two together. I didn't wait long and went right to the Health Center on the Saturday after my symptoms showed up. I was given a three week course of antibiotics, which made my symptoms get worse at first, but then completely disappear.

Five days after I was done with my three weeks of "Doxy" my migratory joint and muscle pain resurfaced. I knew what this meant- I hadn't killed the bacteria "Borrelia burgdorferi" off completely. But I needed to get a positive test for Lyme before anyone gave me more antibiotics. This would prove to be my biggest challenge.

I had heard of a doctor who knew of a more "accurate" test. My first and second Western Blot titers came back negative. I went to see said doctor who drew blood that day for a private lab in California. She said it would take three weeks for the test results to come in. It turned out to only be two weeks, but overall I've had to wait four weeks since going off my first round of Doxy. In those four weeks I started to experience major dizziness and an acute feeling that I was going to fall backwards. I started to feel extreme pain in my spine and thoracic area in my back. I was mixing up words and not being able to find the right word in a sentence. I had a few bouts of insomnia, early awakening and definitely felt heightened anxiety and/or depression. None of the symptoms stuck around, everything came and went, including my migratory joint and ligament pain. But overall I felt like I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. After one particularly hard night, I decided to see if they could discover anything at the E.R.

It was definitely not a good decision. Despite having an empathetic nurse (not my husband) who experienced her own hellish symptoms of lyme ten years before, I had four doctors look me over (and even had an MRI on my spine) and all decided that they were 100% sure I didn't have lyme, mostly because my Western Blot tests were negative. I was 100% sure I did have lyme and felt that I was text book with my symptoms and progression. The infectious disease doctor on call knew that I was frightened and scared, but couldn't find any reason to think that my symptoms were directly related to my tick bite (and felt that 3 weeks of Doxy should have been enough to kill any bacteria). I left feeling crazy and was prescribed Valium.

And the waiting and the dizziness and the dizziness and the waiting and the fear of waiting. Everything I read said that the longer you wait for treatment the greater the chance you have of chronic or persistent lyme. I'm still struggling to get rid of those images of me having to be this dizzy for the rest of my waking hours. But Paul Bunyan is trying to keep me hopeful.

And then today....a positive test from IGeneX, a lab not "recognized" by the CDC. But I'm going with it anyway, because I want to fight this fucker as soon as I can and as strong as I can. So here goes another round of the fight. I'm hearing all sorts of stories about how antibiotics don't always work, how I'll need to drink Kale juice for the rest of my days, how I'll have to stop eating meat, stop drinking beer, stop drinking tea, stop. stop. stop. I'm frightened my life has just stopped.

And then today...my wombats arrive with a bag of sunshine and cookies and cards and magazines and strawberries and candles and anti-stress shower gel and lots of love. And then today...my kids arrive home from miniature golf where Claire got a hole in one. And then today...even though parts of me feel like my life is over, it's the friends and family who remind me that this little bug, this dangerous little bug, isn't worth the hopelessness. In fact, it's taught me that there many tiny big people worth fighting for, including myself.

I just have to learn to not search for hope in a four leaf clover lost in a clover patch.

***my brain synapses have not been firing correctly, which is why it's been hard for me to write. I have so needed to portray my desperation and haven't been able to find the words. Things are not working properly yet, but at some point I have to believe they will. If things don't make sense or are spelled incorrectly know that my fight against the spirochete will be over soon. I have to believe it.