Blast to the Past

Success!!  Blast to the Past

Ten years ago, I had no idea that the hot flashes, chills, and fatigue I was experiencing at my class reunion were the beginning of a complete change in my life!   I remember someone giving me a hard time telling me it was menopause…I laughed. As we drove home from our trip, I began having more of a difficult time getting in and out of the car when we stopped for gas. By the time we made it home, I could barely walk and had a whopping headache.

“Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.”

I sit here and write this blog looking back. I decided that I wanted to recapture my past and hopefully remember some of those lost years. During this trip, I took time to visit old places in hopes of sparring some of my past memories. (Lucky I didn’t listen to those doctors that told me to just accept my fate.) The first night at my class reunion, a fellow classmate comes up and asks: “Do you remember me?” I struggled to remember and I just couldn’t. He says: “How can you not remember me, I sat next to you for four years.” I hadn’t a clue. (I even took the time to cram, before we left, with my yearbooks, but nothing came.) Finally, he stated his name.

Ten years ago, I became so ill after being treated with the standard 10 days of doxycycline for Lyme Disease and was fine a couple of weeks before we came up to visit. By the time I made it home, I was so very very ill, I looked normal, then I was a human vegetable and could not do anything for myself.  Believe me, there were times that I wished for death just to end the pain and suffering or the indignity of having to be bathed, fed and clothed. I feel that a lifetime has passed and I have been reborn.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

This time while we were there, I often heard my husband being asked if I had been drinking or “who had given me my ‘happy pills’.” Often, people look at me and just see a person, a person that looks fine and normal, many just don’t know that I had, as some of my friends say, “I’ve been to hell and back.”

This trip was about reclaiming some of my past. Meet the people that were part of my life that helped shape who I had become. You often hear: “don’t live in the past, look only to the future.” But, I find myself longing to remember especially when someone is sharing a funny story about the “good ‘ol days,” you laugh along but you really wish you could remember.

“I’ve never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don’t understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.”

There was a time during the reunion that I was sitting talking to Andy. He asked so many questions. It was funny how he understood some aspects, especially on how you look fine and normal so they keep claiming that there is nothing wrong. I had mentioned that by the time I arrived home from the last class reunion I had little or no motor skills left. I shared the fact that I had to struggle for someone to “hear me” and then “treat me.” I also emphasized that by the time I was able to get a doctor to treat me, I looked like a dying AIDS patient. (I think that was what helped me in being able to receive treatment and a doctor listening to me.)

What would have happened if I was like hundreds of thousands of others that suffer being heard and getting treated for chronic Lyme Disease? They all look fine but underneath they often wish for death because they feel so much pain and feel so horribly ill for days, months and years. Would I have been able to receive treatment? Would I have found a doctor that believed me? Would I be among those thousands and thousands struggling to be heard? Would I be one of those still praying and hoping that I would regain the life they mourn for before they became ill?

Each moment is a blessing to me. I treasure each moment as if it was my first or my last, depending on how you look at it. I am clearly a much stronger and happier person. I am often asked if anything really upsets or angers me. I tend to be more sensitive to other’s pain. I also tend to appreciate other’s generosity much more. I love to laugh a bit harder than most. There are even times when I am so into taking in what is going on around me that I come across very quiet and nonchalant.

“The past is behind, learn from it.

The future is ahead, prepare for it.

The present is here, live it.”

While I was exploring my old stomping grounds, I found myself teary-eyed when I did finally recall a memory. I also found myself chuckling, laughing and even talking out loud more even when there was no one around—when there was someone around I often caught them looking at me like I was odd, but it didn’t faze me. It seemed that everywhere I went I seemed to strike up a conversation. Life just seems so much more vibrant to me. You are here only for a short while that you need to take it all in while you can—the good, bad, beautiful and the ugly.

Pick the day. Enjoy it – to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come… The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present – and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future. ” ~ Audrey Hepburn

Sidebar:  In my quest to find what was missing, I came across some that were willing to share their stories. I’d like to share what I found while I was acquiring some of my past with you in the next blog or two with photos while we traveled across states like Iowa, Colorado, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Kansas. Most of the conversations I didn’t even start they were willingly shared with me. While I found it a comfort to know that Lyme Disease awareness is spreading, I also found that we have a long way to go.