Breathe, just breathe...

Do you like my title? I always remember the movie "Ever After" where the princess (Drew Barrymore) is standing in her costume at the "Cinderella Ball" about to enter the party. I thought it was fitting given my latest series of events. However, I don't want to start this post with that story. I would much rather talk about tomorrow's holiday! Happy Easter Everyone! I wanted to first acknowledge the most amazing day that has ever took place on this earth. God performed the miraculous with the resurrection of his son. I hope that you get to spend the day celebrating with the body of Christ and with your family. Brian and I have a date with the computer to watch an Easter service broadcasted live via the internet. Thank goodness for technology! I will be so excited when we can celebrate and worship our Lord and Savior in a church building with other believers. I know that day will come! God can do it!

We have had an extremely eventful 72 hours. I am doing okay now, but it was quite scary. Before, I start that story, I wanted to share something with you that Brian and I have kind of kept silent over the last couple of weeks. Before the whole port incident, I had actually been feeling pretty good. Lyme patients often hesitate to post this because it always is so up and down, but we really think Rifampin is helping me make a turn for the better. I often blog about my struggles, so it's time I blog about our triumphs. :) A lot of my constant symptoms have drastically improved. I actually started working out (pilates and crunches). Also, my chemical sensitivities don't seem so extreme. We think that is due more to this wonderful stuff called Toxin Absorbmax. I highly recommend it if you have any detoxification issues or chemical sensitivities. It gets the toxins out of your system big time which we think is what has caused me to be less allergic. What a blessing! We hope things will turn back around soon. We are praying they will!

Okay, let me start "the story". On my last post, I had talked about the random strange fevers I had been getting. Well, I had still gotten a low grade fever Tuesday after (Day 6), so we went to go get it checked out at the Urgent Care. They took some blood and did a bacteria culture and said they would call if they found anything. We never heard, so we were in the clear. That same night, Brian and I had planned on bumping up Rifampin to the full dose. It was rough when I started on it, but for about a month now, I have had no problems with the dose I was at, so we wanted to try it. We had planned on trying it last week, but since the port issue happened, it was delayed.

So, I took the double dose Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and was completely fine. I didn't feel good, but it wasn't horrible. Now, I wasn't naive...I knew that Friday and Saturday would be the most difficult, but I was ready. I was excited because I feel it has been my key to improvement! I wanted to give you this information because at this point, we are still not sure what happened in the middle of the night and on Friday morning, but boy was it an experience I will NEVER forget.

At about 3:30am in the morning on Friday, I turned over and woke up suddenly with horrible chest pain. With every breath, it felt like I had a knife going into my lungs. It was the kind that took your breath away. I could still get enough air, but it hurt so bad. Now, I am used to chest pain. It's one of the not-so-fun symptoms of Lyme Disease and Bartonella. Every time we have gone to the ER in the past, it has always been fine, so I have learned to ignore it. I hate spending the money to have all those tests run to only have them look at you with no answers. So, I just waited for it to subside which usually happens within a little bit.

Well, this was different. I kept laying there waiting for it to go away, but it wasn't working. It was getting worse. I woke up Brian. I hated to do that because he already is so tired, but I had no idea what was happening. The knife sensation wouldn't stop. However, I am stubborn, and I didn't want to go anywhere, so I toughed it out for about 30 more minutes and finally fell asleep.

Brian left for work at around 6am, and I got up at about 9am. I felt okay when I got up. I took my meds and went to the kitchen with the intention of getting something to eat. That's when it happened. The knife sensation came back full force only this time I couldn't breathe very well. I was in agony. I still wanted to wait for it to pass, but called Brian to see what I should do. He was at work and since he had already missed two days last week, he couldn't take off. I didn't want him to because I was hoping it would just subside like it did last night. We already owe so much in hospital bills from the last two weeks, that I was dreading a bill especially when they wouldn't probably find anything.

So, I hung up the phone and it went from bad to worse. The pain tripled, and I couldn't hardly breathe. I felt like I was gasping for air and only getting 1/16th into my lungs. I knew I had to get to the ER (I didn't have to think twice), but I had no one to call. Things were going in and out of focus. At one point, things were going black. It was so bad that I punched 911 into my phone, but I was dreading them coming. Can you believe that I honestly thought that I didn't want my neighbors to see the ambulance? I am dumb. I know. I think I am just gunshy after always being told they can't find anything wrong with me. I hate having all of these horrible symptoms, and then having them look at me like I am crazy. Now, that I look back and after experiencing a 10 minute horrific drive to the hospital, it was a stupid idea to drive. I won't ever do that again. Well, hopefully, this will NEVER happen again!

Anyways, the breathing issue would get really bad and then let up for about 1 minute and then get bad again. So, I thought to myself...I can make it to the hospital. Again, dumb move. Don't ever try that. Promise me!!! That was the longest 10 minutes of my life. I will fully admit I didn't drive the speed limit. I think I would have actually been relieved to get pulled over. Then a cop could have driven me the rest of the way. I still had 911 sitting ready for me to hit send. I kept watching for street signs so I could tell them where I was in the car because I wasn't sure if I would make it all the way to the hospital on my own efforts. I prayed the whole time. Thankfully, Jesus got me there. I had a friend remind me today of that song by Carrie Underwood titled "Jesus Take the Wheel". Boy, did he ever!!!

By the time, I walked up to that little window to check in, I couldn't even talk. I am not sure if the ER girl even understood what I said. Can you believe she still had me fill out that dumb little "what's wrong with you form"? Good grief, lol. Well, they didn't make me wait at all. I don't think I have ever seen the triage nurse move so fast nor have I ever gotten in so fast. I guess that is what you get when you are the crisis patient. My heart rate was off the charts and my O2 wasn't great. The EKG was normal (as usual), but that started a long day of tests. Brian still couldn't get away, and I was definitely still okay with that. I knew the Lord was with me. I know he wanted to be there, but I actually wasn't even able to tell him how bad it was until he got home (which was probably a good thing cuz he would have come). I think God showed me just how much I can do by myself. I don't think I have had to be that independent in a crisis for a long time.

Anyways, the doctor came in and said he was about 95% sure it was a blood clot in my lungs with all of my symptoms. LOVELY! I had a nuclear scan, ultrasounds, blood work, and x-rays. I was on O2 most of the time I was in the hospital, but the tubing made me break out, so I had to take breaks (only me right, lol). The longer the day went on, the more my breathing improved. I would still be extremely short of breath when I moved around, walked anywhere etc., but the pain went away and guess what...all the tests came back negative. Now, don't get me wrong, I am definitely thankful, but after my experience that morning, I was really surprised. How in the world could that be?!!! I think he was puzzled with the shape I was in when I first came in, and how it was all negative. He did say it could have been a small clot that moved through my lungs, but that once it passed, my body would dissolve it on its own. Other than that...he said he didn't know much about "Lymes" (did you notice the "s"?!!!), but to call my "Lymes" doc to see if it could be caused by the disease. You know you are in for a treat when medical personnel can't even get the name of disease right, lol. It happens all the time.

So, I was released even though I still wasn't breathing normal. However, I was glad to be out of there and to have the morning behind me. Brian came home late afternoon, and after our conversation, I could tell he was a little shook up. Neither of us have experienced a crisis like that, and hopefully, it never happens again. Could it have been a really big herx caused by upping my dose of Rifampin? Maybe, but I am desperately hoping that was not the case. I have had breathing issues before, but not the knife-like pain at the same time. So, I am thinking it wasn't, but I guess we will find out next week.

That brings me to our mega prayer request. Obviously, I need to try the Rifampin dose again, but to be honest, I am pretty scared. I might change the day I do it so Day 3 would be on Saturday when Brian was home. That usually is my worst day. I have to remember though, my goal is to get well, and like I have said before, I am willing to do whatever it takes to get there. If a half dose helped me to make so much headway, then I can only hope that a full dose will help me even more. Please just pray that God would protect my body and keep us from reliving the events of last Friday. We would appreciate it. If I don't tolerate it, we will back down on the dose. However, I am thinking this had to do with the port/blood clot incident than it did have to do with the increased drug dosage. Something that it might have also been was a drug interaction between Rifampin and another one I take. I don't know what made me check this, but when I looked it up on "interaction checker", it said moderate. I haven't had a doctor catch it. Maybe, the dose increase set it off the interaction? Who knows. I did stop taking that drug, so we shall see. We might never figure it out what happened, but I am thankful for the Lord's protection. He definitely works behind the scenes.

Other than that, it's been a good weekend (ha..ha..that sounds funny when I type it after all that happened). School is winding down. Brian is studying for his last section of the CPA exam. We can see life slowing down in a couple of months! It will be nice to be able to hang out at night instead of working on homework. God has given us so much to be thankful for. We are so blessed. We have a loving Savior who gave us the precious gift of eternal life. We are seeing glimpses of healing. God is so good. It's our prayer that God would be glorified through our life. We have a long way to go, and we are constantly being challenged and molded, but we know it is for our good. We hope you have a blessed Easter with your families. We pray that God would reveal Himself to you in a new way. Talk to you soon! :)