what's to come

After a long break in treatment due to gall bladder surgery, and then finishing up the Lyme/Babesia targeting phase, I saw my lyme doc this morning for the first time in what seems like months. It was a tough appointment. Not because we're not on the right track and it's all going to hell in a ham basket. But because I am emotionally just worn to pieces. It's been a very FULL few weeks here in my world, with a sick cat and a home study being done so that Deena and I and our kids can be a family in the eyes of the law (after we've really already been a family for going on eighteen years), along with the usual trials and tribulations of being mama to a 12-year-old-boy-going-on-16, and a daughter who is currently taking driver's ed, and gosh darn it, why hasn't HGTV called us yet to let us know that we've won our dream house in Asheville?

Deeeeep breath.

Every time I meet with my doctor and go over what's to come, I get overwhelmed and emotional. This time was clearly no exception. We are about to jump into the harshest phase of treatment that hopefully I will ever have to experience.  This next phase will also be the longest....  a whole freaking four months long.  This brings more grief up in me....  about circles I'll need to continue to put off, about where I imagined I would be and how I'd feel next spring, about, well, everything.

Not only that, but no more dilly dallying diet-wise...  she wants me to omit even more things....  which is overwhelming to me not only because I'm admittedly a carb addict, but because when I'm on these meds, it's like my taste buds get all messed up, and I am extremely finicky about whatever I put into my mouth. As many of you know, I'm already a very healthy eater for the most part....  but honestly, sardines and bone broth and cauliflower don't sound so appetizing right now.... even though I usually love them. And to top it off, eating the way I need to eat right now requires a lot of cooking time (and energy). Deena was so sweet, trying to comfort me and telling me that we'll cook together on the weekends and that she'll eat sardines too....  but the truth is, we have two kids who I can tell you right now will not eat sardines.

Well, shit.

This I know. I've done it before, and I can do it again. I have paleo and Wahl's protocol recipes and cookbooks up the wazoo. I know how to implement it. And damnit, come hell or hight water, I will.

I know I sound a bit gruesome right now.  Will someone please pass the tissues?

But there's good news too. My doctor, probably due to my obvious tear-stained overwhelm and the intense looks I gave her every thirty seconds during our two hour appointment, has decided to put me on the "easier" abbreviated version of this next phase...  you see, it's all relative.  I can be bummed that I have to do it to begin with, or I can be grateful that I'm not doing the harsher version of it.  I guess I'm somewhere in between in this moment...  and hope to be more on the grateful side perhaps tomorrow, once all of this has a chance to sink in....  of course, I might have to be reminded of it all being relative once I start the meds.

But I don't have to take anything today or tomorrow or for the next 11 days. And actually, my doctor also encouraged me to take an additional week off (again probably due to the fact that I was weeping through much of our appointment)...  so really, it's more like 18 days free of meds. Hallelujah.

So for this eighteen days, I'll be focusing on diet. And savoring this imperfect life as much as I possibly can.  And tonight, I'll go see Liz Gilbert with my daughter and some dear, dear friends, and hopefully won't cry through the entire thing.

( I really wanted to come on here today and NOT write about Lyme. I really wanted to write about my session with Fancy the therapy horse yesterday. But for now, I'll save that for another day, or maybe for my other, less Lymey blog.  In the meantime, that's her in the picture above....  I wish so badly that I could spend some time every day with her. )

BIG

I had my post-op followup yesterday, and I'm healing up just fine, and most of my restrictions have been lifted. The only time I really have pain now is when I sneeze. And when I say pain, I mean PAIN. But atleast it's shortlived.

I'm also back on track this week with my meds... I'm feeling pretty tired today, after not having slept well last night, but other than that, I've surprisingly been feeling pretty good. I wonder...  could it be that a whole bunch of the lyme was hiding out in my gall bladder and is now gone?  Keeping my fingers crossed that this is lasting...

My most troubling issue at the moment is that I'm feeling more than a little cut off from my creative self. I haven't felt like writing or making art. At all. I've been caught up in practical things, like laundry and grocery shopping and taking the dog for long walks in the sunshine-- I guess because for a couple of weeks, I couldn't do those things and I missed them. Goes to show how magical the mundane can really be if we just pay attention. And being willing to see the world that way IS a creative act, if you ask me. So perhaps I'm not as far from my muse as I seem to think I am.

One of the things I hope will shift this is that my friend Paula and I have decided to launch into a "secret" creative project together. And this feels good. Becuase my creative work is usually put out there in the world so openly...  and this time, I'm doing it just for me...  for the sake of tickling my creative funny bone, and getting me inspired once again to write and paint and maybe pick up my guitar a few times a week.  I think I've been resisting the small things lately, like art journaling and blogging and I've even gotten laxidazical about my nightly gratitudes...   because I'm feeling foggy when it comes to the vision of who I want to be in the world at the moment.

For a while, I kept thinking that in order to make sense of this illness, or to make it all "worth it," there needs to be something BIG to come out of it, like a book, a publishing deal, paintings that line the walls of galleries.... I was taught by all sorts of coaches to reach for my BIGness, and to never allow anything to get in the way of that.  But that's a hell of a lot of pressure that really doesn't amount to a cozy environment for healing the body and a tender heart.  I'm finding now that my mission is finding BIGness in the little things...  and discovering "success" inside of myself, rather than on the outside.

Speaking of big, I'll also be going to see Elizabeth Gilbert in a couple of weeks as she celebrates the release of her new book, Big Magic. I've only just begun to read it, because I'm reading that and Brene Brown's new book, Rising Strong, at the same time, which for me is somewhat like tackling a marathon, but I can't seem to put either one of them down! But I will say this... Big Magic is the book I've been trying to write for  the last, I don't know, five years (doggonit). Seriously. Although Liz Gilbert reminded me herself in a recent interview with Marie Forleo that "I'm allowed to add to the pile"--  meaning that yes, it's been done before, but it has not yet been done by me.  So I'm not giving up just yet.

I'm not sure where all this will lead me. Will I lead circles again?  I really don't know. Will I create a deck of wild woman oracle cards?  Hopefully, but I can't say for sure. Will I ever finish my book? Maybe, maybe not. All I can do in this moment is reach for the little things and tiptoe toward what makes me feel dreamy, trusting that eventually, the landscape will become clear again.