The War

I haven't really journaled much about how I feel about having Lyme and coinfections even though I have SO MUCH I can say about it!

 For one thing, the shock of realizing that my life has been radically altered by an invader that I could tell from the very start - was here to stay - has worn off to some extent.

I guess what I mean is that to some extent, I have become used to having this illness. But I will never forget the deep depression I felt for many months after first becoming infected - knowing that I would never again be the same. Lyme disease isn't like the luxury of having a fleeting cold or a flu.

 And I remember how the antidepressants only made me look even less sick on the outside. So I felt even less believed.

  18 years later, I have also given up so many things in life anyway, that not being able to have them because of illness doesn't bother as much as it might someone else.

  I have forgotten how it feels to feel "normal". And I can't imagine what it would feel like to be completely free of fighting this battle every day. Like a soldier at the front lines who is told that the war is finally over, I suspect.

I guess I dont have much faith, because the only time I anticipate that happening, is after I have died and gone to meet God. To imagine that there will ever come a day while I am alive on earth, when I will be completely healed, seems completely impossible to me.

Every day I feel as though I am fighting at the front line of a battle. The enemy is always just inches away from  overtaking me. I use every bit of weaponry that I have to hold it back, but can never seem to defeat it.

 I am exhausted with fighting. I absolutely depend on my stomach, liver, and kidneys to hold up under all the stuff I have to take every day. But can this go on forever? I have to keep adding more and more things to my arsenal and trying new strategies.

I wish I could put my full energy elsewhere. Where I know it is more useful. I try all the time to do that. To be useful to God the way I think he wants me to. And the enemy disease keeps trying to destroy me in the mean time.

The good thing out of all this, is just that - that I keep fighting the battle so I can do what I think I am supposed to be doing every day. If I didn't have a purpose, I probably would not have the strength to keep fighting, and probably wouldn't have the desire.

 I think that if I did not have a purpose, I would look high and low for one, so that I could see the purpose for fighting the battle. I feel for anyone with this disease who does not know their purpose in life.