wicked wrote:Dear Team,
As some of you know, I was diagnosed with
Lyme Disease recently and have just finished the initial treatment for that, which included 5 weeks of
antibiotics. Having the disease was hell, as was the treatment, as the
bacteria dying off create a toxic gas in the body, wreaking havoc everywhere.
Lyme’s is a disease that passes the blood-brain barrier and causes neurological symptoms, among
other things, if left untreated. My ordeal started last year, although we’re not sure where or
when I was bit by the nasty tick since I never got the telltale rash. If I had gotten the
bullseye rash, I would’ve been treated immediately for Lyme’s and this whole ordeal would’ve
never happened. But as it was, I just woke up one morning in October 2007 and felt extremely
sick with severe abdominal pain. Since it was the day before I was scheduled to fly to
Nationals, I went to the docs right away and was diagnosed with a bladder infection and ovarian
cyst. This would be the beginning of a long and arduous journey filled with misdiagnoses and
being shuffled between clueless guessing doctors. I had many procedures and even surgery as
they tried to diagnose me. I was put first on vicodin, then on morphine so I could better cope
with the extreme debilitating pain. The morphine helped me get back into doing the daily
things I needed to get by. Previous to that, I was housebound with the pain. I mistakenly
thought I was getting better, even though we still had no diagnosis, because the morphine was
masking the pain.
This went on 7 months. For someone who's normally very physically active, this took it's toll in more ways
than one. During this time, the Lyme’s and the narcotics affected my brain. I was in a
constant fog, had no short term memory (I’d take a pill and then 10 seconds later forget, which
was problematic when on narcotics, to say the least), couldn’t concentrate, had to think hard
at how to do everyday tasks. I would be standing in front of the kitchen sink with an empty
dog water bowl in my hand staring at the faucet,
and not know what to do or how to do it. I
took a lot of time off from work, since I was constantly in the hospital or in a doctor’s
office, and also worked from home, meaning I spent a lot of time on CC. Even in my altered
state, I still didn’t realize I shouldn’t have been trying to make mod decisions or interact
with others. In fact, I didn’t realize until this week, my first morphine-free week in ages,
that it was affecting my behavior in a negative manner. In reading back over my posts, I was
babbling and incoherent at times; I'd write a sentence and then not understand what I wrote
(thankfully I hit delete a lot). I couldn’t always read through a thread to follow it and comprehend
what was being discussed (so I'd just leave it for another mod to handle).
In hindsight, I should have taken a leave of absence from CC modding
duties, but being housebound,
there wasn’t much else to do in between napsand my friends on
here gave me support to perservere through this mess. Plus I didn’t have the mental awareness
to make that decision for myself.
I was sent to an infectious disease specialist at the end of May 2008, the latest in a long
list of specialists I had seen. He tested me for everything under the sun and that’s when we
finally got a diagnosis and began the treatment. He was shocked, as we all were. Lyme’s is
pretty rare up here in the Seattle area.
Anyway, I wanted to share a little bit of what I was going through and explain my behavior over
the last 8-9 months or so. I also wanted to apologize for anything and everything I did during
that time. All I can say is I wasn’t myself and it won't happen again. I am ok now though,
and realize I
hurt people and created tension that didn’t need to be here. I’m sorry to say I
don’t remember most of it. My sincere apologies to all. I hope I didn’t burn any bridges and
hope you can forgive me and give me another chance to make it right. I’m here as part of the
team to make CC better and will do my best to work with you all.
