A House of Cards

Living with CFIDS is like living in a house of cards. For the past 7 months, I've been building my house, bigger and higher, feeling better and thinking I was finally in control. Now it feels like my house of cards has collapsed around me, and I don't even know where the breeze came from.

I pretty much hit bottom yesterday. I woke after 10 hours of sleep still feeling exhausted and weak, still with terrible pain in my knees. I called my doctor's office, like I'd planned to, hoping to discuss my lab results with my doctor. Instead, a nurse cheerfully told me all my blood tests were normal, and the doctor thought it was "just CFIDS." I told her I was getting worse and I didn't think it was just CFIDS. I said I wanted to try doxycycline (abx used for Lyme). She relayed my message to the doctor and came back to the phone to say, "The doctor says she is not going to prescribe doxycycline."

A panic had been building in me for the past few days as my symptoms got worse and worse, and it exploded out of me at this news. I started to cry and tried to explain to the nurse that the Lyme test was unreliable. I got no where and finally hung up in frustration. I immediately called back to the receptionist line and asked for an appointment.

When my doctor walked into the exam room a half hour later and saw me there, she was furious with me. From her perspective, I was second-guessing her decision, professing to know more than her, and had also been rude to her nurse. By this time, I was sobbing uncontrollably. I tried to explain that I only wanted a chance to talk to her directly, to understand the details of my lab results, and to discuss options, like we've always done. She gradually calmed down, and we did just that, but I was devastated that I had harmed our previously good relationship. I realize now I should have asked for an appointment from the start and bypassed the whole phone/nurse situation.

Bottom line of our lengthy discussion was that we have no idea what's causing this severe crash and knee pain. Not only was my Lyme PCR test negative (it's known for false negatives), but there was also no indication of any infection in my bloodwork. Everything was perfectly normal, in an eerie deja vu from my first year of being sick when no one knew what was wrong with me.

The best possibility is probably that some sort of virus has triggered my CFIDS to worsen...but then why not any signs of infection? She finally agreed with me that the risk of leaving Lyme untreated is too great (despite Lyme now being less probable)and said I could try 1 week of antibiotics to see if they have any effect. If not, then we agreed I should probably see an Infectious Disease specialist.

So, here I am, once again waiting and resting. As I expected, yesterday's emotional upheaval made me even sicker today, and I still feel bad that my impulsive behavior pissed off my very supportive doctor. But, having talked through possibilities and options left me feeling less panicked and more peaceful.

Now, I'm trying hard to let go of any pretense of control, giving in to the need for complete rest (it took me all day to store up enough energy for this little session on the laptop). Now, I begin at the beginning again, slowly and carefully picking up my cards and stacking them up again.