My spouse is such a trooper. He has been struggling with the long-term damage to his joints as a result of the toxic effects of a tick-borne infection that lasted more than three years.
The spouse has been in remission — that is, without symptoms — of the illness for more than a year now. But is he bug-free?
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This post appears on Saturday, September 12. An ordinary Saturday for most folks.
For me? This Saturday and tomorrow, Sunday, involves a marriage ceremony then 500 miles. Eh what?
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I call this blog post my “caregiving thread.” I have learned over time that caregiving is internal to my very nature. I don’t know quite how or why, but I have a natural intuitive caregiving gift, so family and friends have observed and told me. This inner caregiving drive and intuition is also something that my twin brother knew about me before I did.
Since my college days, I have been doing one form or another of caregiving for: a) people who experienced tragedies by volunteering with a recognized voluntary organization; b) through active service with a local fire department and rescue squad; c) by helping a cadre of senior pals with home repairs and grocery shopping; and d) through direct caregiving for an uncle, an aunt, my spouse, and now my mother-in-law.
The art of caregiving is something I do… and that makes me, “me.”
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It has been an incredible and rough three-year journey for my spouse as he has dealt with three simultaneous infections born by a tick bite. Months and months of agony, being seen by more than 50 medical professionals, being prescribed more than 160 different drugs, and ongoing fights with a narrow-minded “big pharma”-funded group who deny that his condition could ever exist. Yet with persistent care from a superb general practitioner has brought us to a point that…
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During the past week, my spouse and I have found ways to show the other how he loves him.
Truly, I am honored and blessed to have a man who loves me as deeply as he does, and I try to return the same deep and abiding love through actions — not gifts, flowers, or nights out on the town — but in little, meaningful ways.
Last week, I…
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Loyal readers of this blog know that my spouse has been dealing with serious issues related to long-term infections that he acquired from a tick bite. Three years ago today, he was officially diagnosed with the illness and began a long, torturous process of treatment, recovery, relapse, and now (we think) remission.
When a guy has been sick for so long, and living with serious consequences of that illness, you can’t blame him for dwelling in the present or for adopting a “one day at a time” attitude, without want to think about the future.
My spouse can’t walk without assistance, and he has constant pain in his joints from the permanent damage that those infections caused. So “just get through today” has been his ongoing mantra.
Until yesterday, when…
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My spouse mentioned to his doctor during a regular follow-up visit that he has found some blogs written by people who have the same tick-borne infections that he has. He noted that those blogs describe the pain and difficulty of dealing with the symptoms caused by the infections. These blogs are written sometimes by the infected person him/herself and sometimes by caregivers.
What bothered him most about those blogs is that they ended abruptly once the infected individual began to feel better. There were no more posts describing anything about recovery.
I realize that I have posted a lot about my spouse’s and my journey in dealing with those infections. However…
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This time of year, there are many opportunities to review the past year. Here are my primary lowlights and highlights of 2014:
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Today, I am delighted that I have the best Christmas present ever… under my covers, not the tree.
What?
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I have been hesitant to post anything on this blog about my spouse’s ongoing health condition as he continues the fight to recover from the serious long-term infections he had been dealing with almost this entire year when he had a major relapse starting last December. But now…
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