Progress - 10/13/2017

I’ve decided to do a series of posts about my progress with treatment and how I’m feeling. I will post whenever something new comes up or I hit a new milestone in my treatment/condition.

Speaking of which…..

I got my PICC out on Monday after 7 months!!! That means no more IV antibiotics, no more weekly dressing changes and cleanings, and no more expensive medications! I will only be taking one oral antibiotic from now on.

For those of you who don’t know what a PICC is, it stands for “Peripherally inserted central catheter”. It is a tube that is inserted into a vein in your arm and basically threaded up the vein until it reaches the superior vena cava in your heart. It is used to deliver IV medicine that is more concentrated and cannot be delivered through a normal needle-in-arm IV. A PICC is actually much easier than a normal IV in terms of getting medicine every day. Once it is in, it is virtually painless. There are no needles at all, and the medicine is delivered to your entire body very quickly. However, you can’t get it wet and you can’t put more than 10 lbs. of force on that arm, which can be a hassle; but if you’re getting treatment every day, it is a 100X better than getting stuck with a needle every time.

Here are some pictures of my arm with and without the PICC. The second one is only 24 hours after I got it taken out, so you can see how quickly it heals!

But in other news, I’ve been doing pretty good physically, but not so good mentally. I can do a lot more than I could even two months ago (for example, walk up or down the stairs). Two months ago I was afraid I would need a cane or a walker or something to support me while I walked because it was getting harder and harder. That has been much better now.

But I’m still having a hard time doing anything social or even leaving the house. Right now I am doing all of my classes from home so that really helps. I am struggling with bad headaches, occasional migraines and an extreme hypersensitivity to sound. We are not sure what is causing these things, but I am trying to get off of all my prescription pain and other medications, and I think that will make a difference. I also still have trouble sleeping, but what else is new.

I took this picture yesterday when I had a bad headache. Playing video games helps distract me from other things; everyone needs something to take their mind off of pain or stress.

That pretty much sums up my situation right now. Let me know what you think, and please share this page with others!

-Lauren

#mentalhealth #Christian #millennial #chronicillness #chronic #Lymedisease #Lyme #PICC #antibiotics #healing #migraine #headaches #hypersensitivity