A new year, a new goal

On my mission my mission president was big into goals, he had us sit down and think up some goals during the time we were on lock down on New Years Eve. I wrote out the best new years goals and I was going to accomplish them, I had 1 year left of serving so I was going to make the most out of it. I read my goals ever morning before starting study time, to help refresh and keep me focused on the things I wanted. I worked my butt off, I wanted to meet these goals, I felt like I would be very satisfied with myself and my work at the end of my mission and the end of the year if I worked towards these goals.

Then, of course, things changed. I came home 6 months later. So I read those goals from last year and think, yeah I did a good halfway job on my goals. I did alright. But it is strange how the only goal I have now is to get better. That is the big outcome that I want, and I know I will have made it to that destination when I can go back to school, and I have little things to help me and gauges that I have set so I can notice if I am getting better.

I want to be able to read books again. Not just school text books, but catch up on all the series of books that have come out since the mission. I know part of me not being able to read is Lyme, but it also is part of the depression too, I just don't want to.

Another thing that I am gauging myself on is my desire to listen to music. Again, it's the depression. I don't listen to music in my car when I drive, I don't have any desire to try and catch up on the music that I missed out on the  mission, I just really don't care. I didn't really listen to Christmas music. And sometimes I try to force myself to play at least something, but I just can't get back into it. So that will be something I will try and work towards.

Another thing that I have noticed get better a little bit is my anxiety towards socializing. It is not as bad as it used to be. Just getting together with my extended family used to make me really nervous, and I wouldn't even want to come out and be with them. Again, it's the depression, but I have worked on this one with my therapist and forced myself into to do those hard things, when the anxiety and brain are screaming "no way jose!" And I don't feel as nervous anymore. This is a big one that I need to fix because I can't be an antisocial bump on a log up at school.

There are many things that I have already been doing to help speed up the process of getting better that I will keep on doing through the new year. Detoxing is the biggest one. . I have talked about the Herxhimer Reactions, and how they are pretty much a couple days of me wanting to rip my eyelashes out, and detoxing is the way to try and somewhat prevent Herxing. And so with that I have gotten a gym pass, not to work out (I don't have a prayer of even trying to work out right now!), but to use the gyms sauna. It feels like I'm in South Carolina again, I sit in it for a half hour and sweat. I imagine all the dead Lyme Bacteria carcasses dripping out with the sweat. This half hour process, or any process of sweating leaves me pretty worn out. I don't know why I get so tired after I sweat but I assume it is once again, the ticks fault.

The ultimate goal of it all

Another Detox-ism that I have picked up that I never thought I would is the drinking of strange concoctions that may not always taste like a bag full of gummy worms, but are supposed to help with detoxification so I swallow it. I make green smoothies. I have one every morning, I will shove kale, spinach, cilantro, any kind of fruit I can find to try and mellow out the nasty taste of kale, and anything else that seems healthy. I drink that down for breakfast.

The most recent thing that I am still in a little bit of disbelief over is the juicing that has taken place. My mom got a juicing recipe book that has got me juicing almost every morning. Our Blendtec blendor gets a double work out in the morning as I juice and then drink a green smoothie. Juicing is interesting and it's not so much a flavor problem as it is a texture issue. See I don't mind the strange fruit and veggie combinations, it's just the pulp that is created from the blending process that sometimes makes it hard to swallow. But if you don't think of the strange combinations in the juice and just swallow, the juices really aren't that bad.

The last thing I have tried to do is eliminate sugar and gluten intake at all costs. This is a lot harder than it sounds. I am not pro at it, the sugar is easier than the gluten, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

All in all, these are my goals. And where they are much more different than last year, and I way more different than goals I would like to be setting towards school and an education and such, I have high hopes of these goals being met. It has been 4 months since I started treatment and was diagnosed. I was bit a year ago December 27th, but the symptoms really didn't start to kick in until mid January. Usually 18 months to 2 years of treatment is the average for a Lyme patient. If I can be well enough to go back to school by next year, that is 14 months. But heck, I'll take anything before that too. But getting better to get back to school, that's what I want, and I am going to meet my goals, I at least have motivation for that.



-The Lyme Warrior