San Diego

We took off for San Diego Beach last week with the Rad-a-fam. It was lots of fun. Regan and I weren't sure if we should go because I've been so ill, but we decided it would be good for us to "get out". We stopped for the night to stay with Ben and Rebecca, which was so great. Their house is beautiful and they are so happy together. I have missed Ben a lot lately, so it was good to see him.

San Diego was great. 78 degrees and sunny the whole week. We got to go to Legoland, which is crazy! Almost everything is made out of Legos in the park. It was so fun to see the creativity involved in the park. I wish we could have seen more, but I had to go home early because I felt pretty rotten. The next day we went to the beach, but again felt really awful. Then we got a call from an infectious disease specialist I saw last month with some interesting results to some new tests I had done. I had to go to this doctor, whose name happens to be Dr. Hale!, to get a second opinion on my Lyme Disease to humor my insurance company. Dr. Hale decided to run a few extra tests to make sure we weren't dealing with anything else. He told me that I shouldn't expect anything to come out of the tests, because positive results were rare. But since when are my illnesses common?

So, yes, I tested positive for Brucillosis, which is a bacterial infection that you can get from cows and goats unpasteurized milk or underdone meat in southern Brasil. Well, I lived in Brasil for about 6 months before my mission, so we figure I got it then. I don't understand how I got this infection and not any of my family, since we always ate together. Not only that, but I was a vegetarian at the time! Although I did often eat feijuada, which are black beans with sometimes a pig head dropped in to give it flavor. But as I thought on my time in Brasil, I remember a specific incident in which I drank out of a stream while on a hike with my friends down there. Kevin kept telling me to not drink out of the stream, but back then I was indestructible! I felt that anything in nature could not harm me because I was tough and "one with nature". But, it's possible that a cow pooped in the stream, and Kevin is now laughing.

So why are we just now finding this out? We think it's because the treatment for my Lyme Disease was helping my Brucillosis as well, but it was still not the right antibiotic to combat the Brucillosis. So when I finished the treatment for the Lyme, my immune system dropped and became vulnerable to infection. Because the Brucillosis was already in my system, it presented itself in all of its glory. So I had to fly home that day from California to undergo more treatment while my fam basked in the sun on the beach for 4 more days. Whoopee!

I just need to endure two months of 2 antibiotics that are making me way sicker than I was with the PICC line Lyme treatment. But that's because I have to take these ones orally. If I want to do them through my PICC line, it will cost me $350/day. And really, who can afford that? I wish I could, because there would be a lot less nausea, and maybe I could eat. But what can you do?