Meme: Some things about me

[alee_grrl]

So a meme is going around facebook where people post a certain number of things about themselves that others may or may not have known, and if you like the post then you get assigned a number of things to post about yourself. I ended up doing two lists of things for a total of twelve tidbits about myself. It was kind of fun, so I thought I would post the twelve things here. These are in no particular order.

1. I legally changed my last and middle names in 2004.
2. I have late stage Lyme disease.
3. I can talk a lot.
4. Heights, spiders, and ticks all give me the creeps.
5. I tend to understate things.
6. I was terrified of the Halloween isle til sometime in my late teens.
7. I was in show choir my senior year of high school. It was a blast.
8. I write poetry, which you know if you read this blog. :D
9. I know the words to a ridiculous number of Disney songs and do a damn good rendition of "Everybody Wants To Be a Cat."
10. I had a pet rock as a child. It had smaller rocks and googly eyes glued to it and was a gift from my father's friend, Blues.
11. For many years I wanted to be an astronaut.
12. I had some mad skills on old fashioned quad skates, and look forward to trying to regain those skills.

Bonus tidbit: According to this quiz over at Abebooks, the literary character I am most like is Herminone Granger. This is very appropriate and not at all surprising.

Comments

[jjhunter]

<3

(In a shocking turn of events, I also test as Hermione according to that quiz.)

[alee_grrl]

Hehehe. I wonder if that explains the amazing level of understanding when we are working together on poetree stuff? :D

[calissa]

Thank you for sharing this. As a newcomer, it was a good way of getting to know you a bit better. I may yet do the same thing myself.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but what does late stage Lyme disease look like for you? We don't have it here and although I read Wikipedia I'm not sure I have a grasp of what it's like on a day-to-day basis.

[alee_grrl]

I don't mind the questions at all. I'm in my third year of treatment, and am doing much better than I once was. Although the treatment itself can be hard on the body. Late-stage Lyme looks a lot like other auto-immune diseases (fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, and multiple sclerosis). Lyme is a bacterial spirochete that attacks numerous systems and wreaks havoc through a body is left untreated or inadequately treated.

Before I started treatment my day-to-day life involved heavy fatigue, the kind that makes you feel like you are trying to move through honey or molasses or that someone turned the gravity up too high. I was unable to focus most of the time, and would forget things constantly, and thinking to a great deal of effort. It got to the point where I could read my assignments for class, annotate them, and not remember reading them or making the annotations. My balance was starting to go more frequently and I would list over a bit when walking. I constantly felt like I was going to fall down, and was getting bad attacks of dizziness and vertigo (though I didn't know that is what it was). The world would rush in and out of focus and I would need to lie down as soon as possible. I ached almost constantly, though rarely in the same place. One day it would be my hands, the next my knees, another my head. My skin would get super sensitive to the point where clothes or jewelry would actually hurt to wear. I would also have moments of transient itchiness where the itchy part of my skin would move and not settle down. Lyme attacks the endocrine system as well, and the dual attacks on both neurological and endocrine symptoms can cause or exacerbate mental illness issues. I had struggled with depression and anxiety before, but that first year of law school right before I entered treatment was one of the worst. I thankfully had a very good support network in place but it was a very hard year.

Now that I've been in treatment for a while (my doc's preferred treatment system takes, on average, 3-7 years), my day-to-day is much more bearable. I've gotten a lot of my brain power and functioning back, though I can loose it when I've had an antibiotic increase as the increase in bacterial die-off makes the symptoms worse. I am able to remember things better again, which is very nice. I can take the stairs a little more often than I was able to, and walk around events more frequently. Though if I am going to be out for a while I will carry my cane. I still have to watch my energy usage and not push myself too hard even if I'm feeling better, because I have no reserves and over doing it can set back my treatment and result in days of rest being needed.

I have to be very careful about what I eat as yeast overgrowth is a common co-infection and it causes problems of its own (the itchy skin, hair falling out, ridiculous acne) and it exacerbates fatigue and achiness. So I am on a very restricted diet that is mostly meat and green veggies. It has been easier to follow than I would have ever imagined because I get sick within about ten minutes of eating something I am not supposed to. So I had some biofeedback to let me know that "just a little" would hurt.

That's sort of a gloss of what Lyme is for me. I'm happy to answer questions, and if you want (and have the time), my posts discussing lyme (along with some of my posts that discuss the symptoms before I'd gotten my diagnosis) can be found here.

[calissa]

Thank you for taking the time to write such an informative reply! I like getting to know people and this has helped me get a bit better an idea of what life is like for you (at least, in some aspects).

[alee_grrl]

It is nice to get to know others. :)

[untonuggan]

I think I'll do this on my journal space today, if I can think of things...

[alee_grrl]

It is fun, though the thinking of things can be difficult. I took comfort in the fact that they didn't need to be things that others did not know. For instance one of your tidbits could be about spinning, knitting, and generally being a fiber arts maven.

[sulien]

Hmmm... That quiz said I came up as Hermione, too. I have to wonder what other characters they had available?

Please forgive me if I don't participate in this meme, I've done this one a few times and can't think of anything else I would share in an open post.

[alee_grrl]

No worries. I am not giving out numbers or expecting anyone to pick this up. I just figured it would be fun to these. :)

It would be really nice if they had a page with all the possible results. I know that one of my friend's got Eowyn, and someone commented on her post that she'd gotten Galadriel.

[sulien]

Really?! That's intriguing, I honestly would have thought I'd get someone like Éowyn, in that case. Hmmm...

[sulien]

Hmmm... Actually, I guess it has been a number of years since I've done this meme, so I guess I'll give it a shot. :) Yeah, I know, any excuse to do a meme... ;-)

[alee_grrl]

Memes do make a decent way to pass the time. ;)