And my blog grew up!

Hi everyone!
It's been awhile. I'm doing alright, but I've been going through a bit of a rough patch, a rough patch named 'withdrawal'. But there's good news too. I started taking medical cannabis and it's helping so much. But I realize I forgot to let everyone know I moved my blog to Wordpress (something I meant to do shortly after opening up my blog in 2008. I always finish my plans, but sometimes it takes me awhile). So hop on over to www.BiteMeBack.com to follow me on my healing adventures, with plenty of laughs and optimism! Your comments and support mean the world to me...so I'd like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading, commenting, sharing and motivating me on days when I'm not feeling so well. Special shout out to my family, my biggest fans :D. Love you guys <3 br="">

Let's Talk About Lyme ~ Awareness Event

If you hike, bike, garden, play outdoors with pets or kids, this event is for you!

I'm really pumped to invite you all to our local Lyme Disease Awareness month event: Let's Talk About Lyme. If you call Victoria, BC, Canada home, or are close by or visiting we would love to share an afternoon of uplifting stories, hope and awareness. This is the event I wish I'd gone to before I got sick! 
We have some amazing speakers lined up (The MP's Elizabeth May & Murray Rankin, and Jim Wilson of CanLyme will be there! And some seriously cool activists - like Gwen Barlee...and Lyme disease patients. I will be speaking as well!). 


Saturday, May 10th from 12:00 pm- 3:00 pm
At the Fairfield Community Place, 1335 Thurlow Road, Victoria, BC Canada (behind Moss St. Market!)

Invite your friends, family and neighbours and local groups. Check out our Facebook Event, and share and invite to your heart's content!


Want to help out? We're looking for volunteers to help set up & take-down, and help with kids craft (we're making modelling clay ticks! and doing a faux-tick drag for kids...and there is a colouring table...just saying...it'll be a blast.). If you'd like to help out, please email me for more information @ bitemeback@live.com.

feel free to share the poster with friends, family, neighbours, co-workers...everyone. let's stay safe this tick season.

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Lyme-infected ticks are here on Vancouver Island! Join us for an afternoon awareness & prevention event featuring awesome children's activities, amazing guest speakers, prevention and awareness booths and videos, and speak with local health care practitioners.

See you on on the 10th of May!

Ps: Visit the Victoria Lyme Disease Awareness & Support Group's website at: www.LymeVI.ca

It's A Jungle In There

My white and red blood cells formed such a large cohort that it's been decided I'm going to go back on IV antibiotics. Oh joy! Last night we infused 1/16 of a dose (which apparently takes a lot of work to divide properly!), and it was so rough. My liver started throbbing like a subwoofer before the fractional dose had been infused all the way, always a sign of fun times ahead. Signs of 'fun times while herx-ing' may this week include: headache, heart palpations, all over throbbing and general pain, severe kidney pain (constant) and stabbing liver pains. Lucky me. I did my first dose of the IV Zithromax last night, and today my abdomen is loudly protesting. My liver have a diva complex, and it thinks that every time it raises a peep it should be heeded and the offending substance promptly removed from your prescription list. We'll see if we have to take things that far, but hopefully the dynamic duo of liver and kidney pain will calm down enough to try another dose. That way we'll know for sure. Isn't this fun guys?!

Sunshine in the Forecast?

I love Lyme Disease for the little things: you can start a blog post on February 15, and come back to it again more than a week later to find that absolutely everything you wrote about your symptoms has changed so dramatically that you words seem comical in hindsight. The below paragraphs give you an idea of my thoughts of last week... 

"If you live in Victoria, I'm actually Joking, with a Capital 'J'. More torrential showers and driving winds to look forward to. Yay.

But I'm feeling a bit better. Oh dare I say it? I don't want to tempt the Organ Gods. Because right now my pancreas is feeling pretty chill (And I just ate some almond butter. That's right. take that, Pancreas.), I'm hoping I won't have any more kidney-stone showers (play nice now you two), and my stomach doesn't feel like there's a hole being burnt in it and no weird heart-burn. :) My hair might still be falling out, and I'm not sleeping BUT. I mean, I'm practically ready to TGIF with a margarita & a voluntary all-night-er (ah…insomnia jokes. never gets old)."

Well my squishy bit's are okay, but this week it's been all about infections. Oh boy! No complaints from the abdominal cheap-seats. But the white blood cells are in the top box and enjoying the glory of their multitude. Whiskey tango foxtrot?! Well when my arm started really hurting and green goo began leaking from the site of my PICC line, one supposes an infection brew-eth. The 3 witches from 'Macbeth' have nothing on that gunk…I mean a fillet of a fenny snake? eye of newt? toe of frog?... come ON. So last millennia. All I'm saying is Crayola won't be interested in those colour names. (But if I could just think of the perfect shade for this green goo - it's certainly an original shade & unique origin - I'd be hired!)

It's been awhile since my immune system put up a good fight in any sense of the words. My white and sometimes red blood cells & neutrophils are most often low. But since they're hovering at the high range of normal, in my body that indicates that they're jedi-fighting off an infection. Boo-ya! The immune system is just way too much fun to personify. I'm feeling crappy, and a little fever-y and shake-y and ache-y, but it's not catching. 

I think I am getting a sore throat though. Or it's my picc line poking in my chest. I guess we'll see. I have been making some amazing raw truffles packed with protein and *almost* sugar free. I'm working on crafting a perfect recipe, so stay tuned ;). 

Ancient Brain

I've never let the pain get in my way. Or the wheels. (Sometimes I feel like a spider, a girl with 2 arms, 2 legs, and 4 wheels equals 8 limbs. Have you seen Monsters Inc? I 'roll' by my self like freakin' Mr. Waternoose.) I do amazing things, and they're almost bright enough to hide the pain of living, even from me. 

I have been so busy, I actually don't have time to be sick. Illness is a major inconvenience! Who needs pill breaks and resting and insomnia? I don't let anything stand between me and living fully, especially not being sick, but it requires a re-evaluation of life, changing the definition to suit your needs. Exchange the cloak of pain for a smile, and put the tension in your back pocket for a time. But like every magic tricks or slight of hand, the reality behind the make-believe can't be hidden from the magician. 

I can't figure out the best way to list all the amazing things I've been up to without sounding really conceited and irritating. And I can't figure out a way of talking about the bone pain without feeling like I'm hosting a whiney pity party. Which is why I am writing all this bizarre preamble. I guess. I don't know. Sometime my fingers take my brain for a walk.

Um…I actually started writing this post because I wanted to talk about the Greek and Roman studies class I was taking at UVIC. See….you can never trust your fingers, because they take you places that your terribly logcial mind would not. Without further ado...I'm auditing a class at UVIC (my 3rd so far!), called 'Jews and Christians', which is every bit as rich in primary sources and apocryphal books of the bible(s) as I was hoping! I've also been studying latin for the past 1.5 years, and it's marvellous! I only wish I'd learned it before tackling French and Spanish, and Biology (and music! and literature!), because so many of these words and terms have latin roots. Although the meaning of words have changed sometime during their multi-millennia trek from Latin to English, knowing the root of words help to understand their meaning. Can't wait to start reading Juvenal's satires & songs of Horace, but I'm definitely not there yet. 

The teacher of both these classes has the sort of passion for his subject that I was starting to believe was impossible with adults ;). We met Dr. Rowe at a thrift store and started chatting in line about Lyme disease. I learned that he was a professor of Greek and Roman studies at UVIC, and when he asked if I wanted to audit some classes, I was so surprised, and excited. My love of Roman and Greek mythology started at an early age, when a family friend & librarian gave me children's version of Greek Mythology, 'In the Morning of the World'. When I grew a bit taller and could reach the top shelves of the library, I found Robert Graves' Greek Mythology tomes, which are a beautiful rendering of a culture's complicated myths. I'd wanted to learn more about Greek & Roman philosophy, history, and religion at university, but I never dreamed I'd be able to handle the coursework, or keep up with note taking, or even make it classes. 

Sometimes you can surprise yourself. 

I type (almost) as quickly as someone can speak and am learning to tolerate my robot 'Bruce' reading and butchering ancient sources ("Kay-zar" is one of my favorites, for Caesar. Oh Bruce-y.) 

For whatever reason, I can 'learn' Latin in the way I just can't learn any other subject, with the exceptions of Music and Spanish (a different part of my brain? who know!? who cares!!). I still struggle with severe short-term memory impairment, which makes it fun when I know no ones name, or if they know me. So my secret is you treat everyone with kinds and with an open heart, and figure out from their facial cues whether or not they know you. It's hard for me to think of answers abstractly to Latin grammar questions (I hate & spurn grammar. Could you tell?), but if someone asks me a question and I don't think about the answer, it is there, waiting for me to express it. I love translating Latin...it feels the same as working out an advanced Suduko puzzle.; you solve little pieces and get a glimmer of how it all goes together, and then all at once you've solved the meaning of the sentence, filled in all the numbers.