Hi everyone. I'm back from a 5-week overseas vacation. It was a challenge. There were tears. There was panic. There were bad days. But there were also incredible experiences and I PUSHED myself beyond all I ever though possible, climbed mountains, earned my first 20,000-step day on fitbit, and saw amazing things.
I want to reaffirm to everyone in the midst of the darkness that Lyme sucks but there is still a lot of sweetness to be squeezed out of life. And I want this to be here so I can come back and read it when my shadow falls again (I had a good couple of weeks, but the depression, dizziness, air hunger, fatigue and muscle weakness is creeping back in)
FLYING: I was nervous about
being on a plane for 8 hours because some people have problems in the air. I did great. The take-off and landing, with air-pressure changes were a little nauseating but nothing severe. In fact, it might not have been any worse than before Lyme, I'm just very in tune to how I feel these days.
On the way back, I did have quite a headache, but 2 Advil shut that right up.
The airplane food... ugh. Pack your own if at all possible or fly at night when you won't want to eat. I got a gluten-free meal for myself and a dairy-free meal for my husband, so I figured between the two of us, I could pick a few GF, DF items for a decent meal.
Wrong. What I could eat TASTED AWFUL. I also can't have soy, and since the meal originated in the US, soy oil is in everything. Since peanut allergies have taken the megaphone, they switched to serving pretzels or crackers as snacks... so I was stuck with fruit, which I also don't eat bc of Candida, but I was desperate.
On the way back I tried a diabetic meal (said no battered or breaded products.. but they served it with oat and wheat bread... what's the point?) and a "light whole food" meal, which didn't offer a descript
ion but sounds rather paleo. Wrong. It was also full of dairy and gluten. That was during the day, so I had about
24 hours of no decent meal. It's no wonder by the end of the trip I didn't feel great and was horribly bloated... but I survived.
TSA: I had no problems bringing my own personal pharmacy on the plane. I had a full bottle of Mepron, but medication is allowed over the 3oz liquid limit. I had the original label and info sheet, they just had to
open it, sniff it, wave a magic wand over it, and confirm it was safe. No suspicions about
the sheer amount of pills (32 pills a day for 5 weeks, plus wiggle room... half my carry-on was meds!)
I had a mini lunchbox cooler I put in my CHECKED bag, with a frozen solid ice pack sealed in a ziploc bag, to carry my probiotics. My dr. did confirm that 24 hours without refrigeration would be fine - he said it takes 30 days for HALF the PBX to die. Anyway, they survive the body temp when you eat them, so this was just a precaution. I also wanted my cooler and icepack with me for our road trips once we landed. No problems. (I'm always the one who finds a note in my luggage that "your bag was randomly checked by customs, bla bla bla. I didn't get any of those this time)
FOOD: I found out while overseas that corn is definitely a problem food for me, and unfortunately almost ALL gluten-free items were made with corn. And the unbelievable list of corn-derived foods at http://www.cornallergens.com/list/corn-allergen-list.php had me in tears. So I spent most of my time in the kitchen (what a great way to see the world
).
The European Union passed a law requiring allergen labels on menus, so that helped (except corn is not recognized as an allergen). But they are getting really good at catering to celiacs, diabetics, paleos, and organic foods. And no GMO's, so that's a plus. And they don't use soybean oil regularly.
Lyme is all over the world, so many people have heard of it. Some don't seem to care much, others are aware of the precautions you need to take. I found bug spray specifically labeled for ticks in Romania (it was just DEET, also affective against mosquitos, but I liked the tick marketing. Made me feel validated
.) Aldi in Hungary even sold tick removal kits. I was also given the name of an LLMD in Budapest, so I feel really confident I'd be taken care of if the desire to move back becomes too strong
So I just want to say that YES, there isn't just life after Lyme, but life DURING Lyme. When you start to have those good days, don't be afraid to PUSH YOURSELF. In the boring US suburbs, I'd never have climbed a slippery rocky mountain worth 75 stories of stairs, burned 3000 calories every day, walked 80,000 steps a week, or had such inspiration as to what I can still do with Lyme.
Some days I'm still scared this will never end. But life is still worth living.
Best
twitches wishes to everyone!