Bitch Time

I'm sitting here three hours after my afternoon antibiotic with my tongue and lips on fire again, my throat so inflammed from it that my ears burn. My stomach is puffed out like I'm six months pregnant. I won't even go into the dizzy part. I won't even go into how frustrated my doc gets because I seem to react adversely to every medication created by modern science. How can I blame him? I drive him nuts.

Only problem is that I have no choice with this med. It's been over two months now. An infection that was supposed to be killed in five days by Cipro still left symptoms after an extension to ten days. The symptoms were still there after ten, so I waited to see my CFIDS doc an hour's drive away, rather than go back to the walk-in clinic for this, around the block from my house. Another wider culture revealed a lurking 'resistant' bacteria. Twenty eight days on the med. Nada, though the med killed THAT bacteria. Symptoms still there.

This time my doc ordered a test that covered both arobic and anarobic bacteria, one not routinely done in the labs. Aha, another little bugger surfaced that was resistant to the antibiotic that killed the first one, finally.

Oh, it gets better. Two antibiotics would kill it. Period. That's all she wrote. I tried the one of choice and woke up gasping for air. It was terrifying and I probably should have gone to the Emergency Room, but as long as I could breath and it got better, I chose not to. Unless I thought I was in grave danger, I was more afraid that any med they gave me there might do just as much harm.

One med to go. This one. Now, three days into it, I don't know how I'll last out the next seven days and am wondering, too, if the ten day round is going to do it this time, either.

I feel crazy. The infection hurts enough, but to have the cure hurt even more really sucks.

I also always feel during these times how utterly alone any of us ultimately are in going through these experiences. I have good friends who care and thank god for that. I have a husband who ignored his cell phone all day on the day I had trouble breathing. Of course he didn't check on me. That's not his style. Of course I had the option of 911 if things got worse. My new best friend.

I'm tired. I've been through it all for too many years now. I'm back to pretending I'm a POW and saying 'if they could survive, I can'. A lot of people have it way worse than I do, but i still don't think that takes away my right to say ever so often, 'this is just the pits today'.

If you know how to teletransport, come rub my feet.