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" Fight on, children don't give up" are the words to a Ronnie Gilbert / Pete Seeger song. I really enjoyed reading what people had written, and that was the first thing that occurred to me to write about myself. I cannot imagine writing another 100 or so pages that these (or the EZ variant) must have seen over the years.

I am 54, the mother of 27 and 15 yr old sons, wife a remarkable man and daughter of a more remarkable woman. I've been disabled for 9 years, some of it very disabled. Half of the time I had not found the correct diagnosis, and was searching searching, beating down the walls for answers. It was like a tricky computer game because a specialist guaranteed me the correct answer, which was the first door I opened did not apply to me under any circumstances, so I believed him. A lot of wasted years getting worse and looking elsewhere, I returned to that door, no longer able to work. First fight won, I had Lyme Borreliosis.

Next fight, what was wrong with my kid, who obviously was not normal. But not obviously how not normal. Lots of fights, trying to keep him in school, trying to get his dad to support therapy. Now trying to get his myriad of docs to assess him for Lyme disease. Of course he doesn't have it. But something was still wrong. I finally flew him to the best doc in the world for kids with Lyme Borreliosis. I didn't know, I just knew I was quite sick when I was pregnant with him. He had congenital Lyme. A diagnosis, a plan, so the second fight was won.

For both of us coinfections emerged. Eventually I turned my mind to my older son's problems and my husbands problems. You guessed it. The whole family. The older one, not working or finishing school I despair of. But he is too old to make do anything. It invades the brain and causes subtle dysfunction. Perhaps he will decide to get treated later.

I got slightly better with antibiotics til I missed some days due to my insurance, then much much worse and developed MS. There is good news in this. I got so much worse, I had to go on IV antibiotics. I spent a year and a half on IV antibiotics. I did GREAT. I felt so good. From barely able to walk to the car, I grew strong enough to start taking walks, awake enough to start taking walks. My brainfog cleared tremendously and I went off most of my pain meds because I no longer needed them. My doc was willing to let me keep going or to try off and the insurance policy that covered them was going away, so I went off. I have relapsed some. Ah well, I am still lots better than before.

I am on high dose oral antibiotics at the moment, read the Lyme and Rife boook and considering going back on IV. $$.

In the meantime, I thought I would note what this illness has given me:

First and most obvious: TIME. I used to run myself ragged all the time, never had any time. Worked til I dropped. If I had cracks of time, they were filled. I have time now, by force. It is a marvel and I love it. Now that I am a bit better, I am trying a senior citizen's exercize class and a senior citizen's art class. I love them both. And I play bridge a couple of days a week. So I get out of the house most days of the week, as compared to when I couldn't out of the recliner.

Cats. We got our Siberian breeders so Jamie would have something healthy. Our cattery came about because I was so sick. I love our cats, and I love having a cattery.

Variety. I only met a narrow range of people, very much like myself, educated similarly to some extent. Everyone American, Californian, university graduates with technical backgrounds, or working to be university graduates. A little too cookie cutter for much breadth though they are some very nice folks. Noone from Norway for instance. One needs eyes on the world. And it is much easier to trust the will of the people when you can see common sense come from other people. Then it is easier to have hope for the future.

An enemy to fight. There are indeed bad guys, and those are the microorganisms who bogarted my body, not some football team or some other country. If it is bad, it should be fought, and if it is undereducated, it should be educated. My microganisms need eviction. I'm ready to fight on.

PS, the rest of the family is doing a fair amount better.

Your friend,
Kit