BITE ME! .the movement.

"Bite Me" is a movement that gets rid of negativity and enforces 
optimism in life. 

When you are chronically ill like myself sometimes everyday is a bad day. Everyone has their bad days where every little thing makes you want to curse and shout. So "Bite Me" is inspired by my chronically ill friends suffering from Lyme disease, but is a movement that everyone should try to embrace.

Every month I give myself one "Bite Me" day. That day is the day that 
I have designated as my day to just say to the world "Bite Me!"

Use that one day to express every bad feeling you have. Be mad, be 
angry, be grumpy, hell even be b*tchy! Let it all out! Scream in your 
car, shout some curse words at the top of your lungs, even punch a 
couple pillows. The purpose is to do anything and everything you can 
to express and purge yourself of those "I feel like crap!", "I"m tired 
of being sick and tired!" emotions. Then before you go to bed release 
those emotions and allow yourself to be free of them. Then hopefully 
the next day you will wake up at least feeling a little less angry and 
frustrated.

This approach uses anger in a therapeutic way and gives you a sense of freedom from expressing and releasing those emotions. Let’s be real, everyone, and I mean every single person in this world gets angry, frustrated and harbors some form of negative emotions. Suppressing those feelings and holding them in only makes them fester and grow. So why not use negativity to benefit you in a positive way? Use your anger, use your pain and just force it out all in one day. Then once your emotional reservoir is empty you can fill it with positive thoughts.

Sometimes you just have to get angry and fed up with something to push you to the breaking point, and then when you reflect back you tend to have a new perspective on the issue and may even see new ways to resolve or healthier ways to deal with the issue.

So when you are having a ‘bad day’ take a moment and think to yourself; “Is this going to be the worst day for me this month?” If that answer is no, let it go and keep pushing forward. If the answer is yes, if today is the absolute worst day of the month you can imagine yourself having and everything has just reached its breaking point then say; “Yes, yes world! Today sucks so just BITE ME!”


If you ever feel like your dreams are broken and you've lost your way, just remember all dark clouds have silver linings and the North star is always shining to lead you home.

Time Flies...

Time passes so slowly, yet so quickly all at the same time. Sometimes a single day may feel like an eternity only for me to realize a few days later that an entire month has passed before my eyes. We all seem to want more time yet we are all in such a rush. Even I find myself wanting time to pass more quickly in hope that in the foreseeable future my life will take a turn for the better. Though I am not able to live out my life as vicariously as I would like I think it is important to find at least one good thing (even though there are always many) in each day and appreciate it for what it was.

In the past five months I have found myself in a stagnant state. Another diagnoses has been acquired, thankfully it is something non life-threatening. It just seems to leave a few more missing pieces to the puzzle. I am still dealing with reoccurring infections (other than Lyme and co’s) and my Mono has also flared up. I have had an increase in my Lyme and Chiari symptoms, some symptoms which are hard to differentiate whether they are truly from Lyme or Chiari. Therefore I have decided to have my Chiari surgery and will be having that done later this summer. Hopefully that will help solve and alleviate some symptoms so that my doctor will be willing to start me on a better Lyme treatment again. So for now it is just the hurry up and wait game to see where I will be after surgery.

I am also debating searching for another Lyme doctor. My last LLMD was good and did everything he knew how, but it’s kind of disheartening when your LLMD dumps you because they are out of ideas and you are out of their league. As much as I dread even the thought of this, I think I am going to have to be bold and go to one of the big guy LLMD’s. I just need to start playing the lottery in hopes of winning big cash to pay for it! At least I have my local MD! I firmly believe I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for him and all he has done for me!

"On A Scale of 1 to 10"

Doctor: "What is your pain on a scale of 1 to 10?"

Me: "Honestly, 47!"

Doctor: "Let's not be dramatic."

Me: ".....That's really an understatement...but I guess on your scale an 8."

          I hate when people ask me to rate my pain. Why, you may ask? First of all I think all chronically ill people that have constant pain hate this question and the vagueness that people associate with the irrelevant charts they show you with the smiley faces ranging from smiling to crying. On a doctor's scale of 1 to 10 my ten is not me crying with a frowning face, my "ten" is me blacking out because I'm in so much pain. So when people ask me to "rate my pain" I always answer "On your scale about an 8." I say 8 because to people who have not experienced pain, and don't deal with it daily they don't understand that what they may call an 8 or 10 is my 1, my constant. So to them an 8 is pretty bad. When to me, it’s an everyday, all the time, consistent annoyance.

          Secondly I find the answer that people are looking for much more complex than the broad question.  So what's the correct way to ask this question?

Doctor: "So we will go from head to toe. What type of pain are you having in your head and how bad is it?"

Me: "Let's see, the front of my forehead feels like someone is hitting me with a hammer, that's about a 6. Then there is the pain at the base of my skull that feels like a session of acupuncture that has gone horrible wrong and the needles are stabbing my brain. I'd say that’s a 7. Oh and the vibrating and the feeling like my brains been put in a blender, that is about an 8. Then there is my light sensitivity where everything looks like I’m starring into a flashlight, then the pressure and tightness in the back of my eyes like someone is squeezing my eyeballs as if they were stress balls, that’s an 8. Then there is the phone in my ears that no one will ever answer and the feeling that I’m scuba diving underwater, that's an 8 too."

Doctor: "......Umm, okay. Any neck pain?"

To go through the whole body, this process takes about 45 minutes on a good day. I know because I have literally thought through every part of my body that hurts and what I would rate it (on a doctor’s scale). Trust me, it takes a while. It is much faster to think about what doesn't hurt. That list is pretty short. Finger nails, eyebrows, eyelashes... some day’s that sums up that list.

Another question that I was recently asked related to the 1 to 10 pain scale is what is my Pain Goal? I had a new nurse that asked me this question and to her it was very routine but I had never been asked before and had difficulty answering. Me, either suffering severely from Lyme brain that day or just being completely oblivious had to ask her what she meant. She replied that if I could have my pain be lower than what it usually is what would it be? I said, which to me is an obvious answer, zero! Clearly my pain goal would be to be pain FREE. This was apparently not the answer she was looking for. She explained to me again that if my pain could be lower what would be a level I could tolerate. Well to this my immediate answer was; I am tolerating my pain level now otherwise I would be screaming and going insane. By this point I was clearly confused by the question and the nurse was not finding my answer sufficient so after about a 3 minute conversation of trying to explain to me what the term “Pain Goal” meant I gave up and said well I guess I five, just because I have no idea what you mean. So maybe this just isn’t a question for people who deal with chronic pain or maybe I am just endlessly confused. However my pain GOAL is zero... I find that logical! 

A much more realistic pain scale!

Riding the Dragon

January 1, 2012

In the Chinese zodiac the year 2012 is the year of the Dragon. I hope that isn’t any indication that this year is going to be a ‘monster’ to deal with. However, I believe in the phrase, “what will come, will come”! We just have to take everything for what it is and move on as best as we can!

May this year bring us all what we need, to each our own wish come true! To better health, happiness, and more love!