A rude awakening

I wasn’t sleeping well.  I woke up a few times in the night, but when I woke up with my hands raised up close to my neck and my neck taking over and thrashing my head back and forth, I was less than calm.    

Up until then, the only twitches I had were slight neck twitches – little ticks, really, just quick little ones brought on seemingly by stress.  And only a few a week.  But this was something right from Under Our Skin – the scenes where Mandy has some rather visually disturbing, intense neurological twitching. 

I have to say that it is the weirdest feeling to have your body move when you don’t want it to.  Kind of akin to a leg cramp when you’re swimming (less painful, but more movement - but that same kind of involuntary reaction), it’s that same feeling where you can’t help but watch as your body just moves on its own and sort of ‘takes over.’  Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth my head went, moving involuntarily and violently, without my consent.

Somehow, by some miracle, I fell right asleep again right after it stopped – luckily after only about 5 seconds.  When I awoke again, it was morning and I woke with a start, immediately remembering the involuntary thrashing that woke me in the night.  And I was pretty freaked out.  In fact, when I called my LLND to let her know, I was adamant that I was fa-reaked out.  Anxious thoughts started racing – am I going to have a seizure?  Am I going to have meningitis?  My lower back hurts, yea, what if I have meningitis?

It was a very trying time.  I just laid there and stared at my night stand while my mind just went on thinking and thinking.  But then I started to try hard to put more effort into reassuring thoughts.  I let my doctor know, if she’s concerned, she’ll call and tell me what to do.  I have been more stressed out lately, so that’s probably a big factor, yea, that was probably it.  And then I realized, I’m thinking up a storm.  Wait a minute – just breathe.  Don’t think.  Just lay here.  And b r e a t h e.  That helped quite a bit after just a few breaths.

I heard back from the doctor’s office and was able to get an appointment without much of a wait.  My doctor assured me that I was OK and it was caused by one of my coinfections (I can’t remember which one – either Bartonella or Babesia).  And we also discovered that I for sure have chronic Epstein Barr Virus, too – something about my tongue and throat indicated I’ve for sure got it.  I’m just a little package of diseases, aren’t I?  Ha ha ha.  We did a Meyer’s cocktail (a multivitamin injection!) and that was pretty cool.  I could taste it, smell it, and got a little flushed.  It was GREAT!  Also added some Cat’s Claw tincture to my arsenal as the anti-viral for the Epstein Barr. 

All in all, everything is great.  It was a wonderful lesson in keeping calm.  After all – the skill of keeping yourself calm must be used, like any other skill.  Use it or lose it!

It definitely was an eye-opener and a blatant reminder that something's temporarily got a hold of my body (as if I could forget).   

I am also profoundly lucky that I don’t encounter this neurological twitching stuff very often.  Many Lymies have seizures – many times a day.  I just can’t help but be completely amazed at just. How. Lucky. I. Am.