30 Reasons Why Having Lyme Disease Automatically Makes You a Badass

Pardon my French, but there really is no better word for "badass" for my fight with Lyme Disease. The other day I read a blog that was truly hilarious. A fellow Lymie wrote a blog entitled “25 Reasons Why Being a Lyme Patient May Automatically Make You a Badass”. I have stolen some of her ideas, and decided I should make my own list. Please take the time to read her list as well at www.infectiousoptimism.blogspot.com.

This Lymie spoke of how strange our lives are, and I think most people with Lyme’s Disease would agree. We take 6 hour jaunts to the doctor and return to a messy house full of medications and medical bills. Our fridges and cupboards are stocked full of Gluten-free products and probiotics. The only time we actually leave the house is to see a doctor, because the cold outside can literally make us cry from pain. We take one or two naps a day, and spend some good time looking up our health conditions on Google so that we can try to make sense of the life we have been given. But the best part of all of this is that it has become normal for us. Our lives may seem so strange or even tragic to an outsider looking in. But to us, it’s just life. And sometimes I think to myself, “My life is weird.”

To quote this Lymie, she said, “At this point, I could have had a pity party. Instead though, I smiled. I thought about how cool some of my experiences have been, despite how weird they truly are, and how proud I've been of myself for making it through some of the outlandish, yet astonishingly horrific things that have happened to me and to my body. I decided that this all doesn't make me weird. I think it makes me a badass.”

So here is Ashley’s list of why I am also a “badass”. This is a list not meant to make anyone feel sorry for me, but to join in the laughter that is my life. Hope you enjoy!

30 Reasons Why Having Lyme’s Disease Automatically Makes You a Badass

1. You take 34 pills a day and can swallow 6-8 at a time.

2. You watch Grey’s Anatomy and you know the names of many of the oral and i.v. medications they give to their patients including correct dosage, side effects, and reasons for needing that med. . .because you’ve had to take most of them.

3. You collapse or faint at least 5 times a day and laugh when you hit the ground rather than panic.

4. Your family calls you for advice on medical conditions and medications as if you were a pharmacist or doctor, and you usually have an answer for them.

5. You used to rock climb and backpack to be hardcore. Now your new Everests are passing kidney stones, shopping for groceries, or doing laundry.

6. You have 4 or more debilitating migraines a week.

7. Before the tick bite, you couldn’t spend enough time outdoors; sleeping on a dirt floor on a mountain was better than a bed. Now you are terrified to even sit on the grass in your front yard or allow your child to play outside.

8. You move your husband and child to the other side of the U.S. to get proper treatment without any family nearby to help through the rough patches.

9. It takes the phlebotomists at least 7 pricks to draw blood because all of your veins have been used so much they have collapsed or “dried up”.

10. You drive on the wrong side of the road because you can’t remember which side is the right side of the road. This almost results in a head-on collision going 45 mph with your 4-yr-old son in the car. And yes, my husband took my keys away.

11. You have a nickname for the come-and-go sharp-as-hell pain in your abdomen. KOBS. Kidney Ovary Bowel Stone. Because each time you go to the E.R., it is one of those 3 issues.

12. Before the tick, you were healthy and did not “believe” in medication. After the tick bite you have been diagnosed with Lyme's Disease, Ehrlichiosis, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, hypothyroidism, bipolar depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, endometriosis, mono, brucellosis, a hiatal hernia, gall stones, kidney stones, anemia, distended colon, Candida, 12 lesions in brain, insomnia, and migraines.

13. Within the last 3 years you’ve had your appendix, gall bladder, and tonsils taken out. . .because the doctors just didn’t know what else to do. Oh, and the day after your tonsils are taken out, you catch pneumonia and end up in the ICU for a week.

14. You are like Bella Swan, only rather than attracting hot vampires and werewolves, you attract infectious diseases.

15. You have 21 doctors saved in your cell phone.

16. You’ve been inches from death too many times, and your husband knows how to keep you alive better than the medical staff at the hospital.

17. You’ve seen over 50 doctors in the past 10 years and all but 6 convinced you that you were not sick and that you were creating it in your mind. This eventually makes you crazy and you check yourself into the psych ward.

18. While driving, you can’t remember where you are or how to get home, and sometimes even how to drive.

19. You have to check a calendar to remember when in the world was the last time you took a shower. And usually it’s been a week or two.

20. Once in a while you have a dream that you are not sick and you wake up with tears in your eyes.

21. You’ve gone a whole month without going “number 2.”

22. You’ve had to say, “Hi. My name is Ashley Whimpey. And I have Chronic Lyme’s Disease” to a small crowd of people in a circle.

23. Most girls don’t leave the house without making sure their lip gloss is safely tucked in their purse. In your purse, you have emergency medications in case of severe pain, nausea, or an anxiety attack. In most cases, you will need to take all three.

24. You’ve had numerous IV bags full of something that an average person would never consider injecting into their veins, nor will they ever have to.

25. You’ve had a fever of 101 degrees for about 10 years.

26. Every day you have to make the choice of whether to be weak and faint from not eating and drinking, or in major intestinal pain from eating and drinking.

27. When you fill out a “symptom survey” at the doctor’s office, you begrudgingly check off 47 of the 60 symptoms listed. If you were being completely honest with yourself, you’d probably check off 52.

28. You’ve had injections thicker than toothpaste shot into your neck, back, hips, and bum, and you didn’t even cry. . .or receive a lollypop.

29. You voluntarily take oral and iv antibiotics that you know will make you feel like crap and want to die, so that one day you can be the wife and mother you have always wanted to be.

30. You’ve been sick every day of your life for more than 10 years and still manage to be optimistic enough, and brave enough, to wake up every morning and do it all again.

I had so much fun writing this list. Whenever you think your life is weird or that it is eating you up, just remember . . . YOU ARE HARDCORE!! Please everyone . . . not just Lymies. . .write your own list. I’d love to read them all.