Re: Re: Welcome to the Winter Flame Wars

[Guest guest]

You know, , I read and pondered this whole illness for so long now, that

I think it's just really beginning to make sense to me. That bad run-in I had

with the antibiotics in September is what really capped it. No way 30 days of

that stuff should have wiped me out for a full 8 weeks. But it did. I was so

wrecked it took another week of Actos after that before I could tolerate CSM

again. It was royally miserable, and it was just like a mini-version of the

really ultra-bad stuff last year. Only this time, I had a clue what was

happening. (Not that being clueful is worth anything when you're that

brain-dead, or I'd have called the doc the minute I knew things were going badly

and saved myself a world of hurt.)

But it may have been worth it all, in a very perverse way. What happened was

just stunning in its ferocity and how fast it got me. That's how close it is -

just a single new exposure away. And suddenly, I was reacting to everything, and

hurting everywhere. Had the bronchial stuff, too. And this stuff was NOT

airborn! It was in a tablet. So I finally, at long last, ate some mold. And hey

- whaddya know? The reaction is absolutely identical to breathing it, just in

case anyone was still wondering what the heck they're talking about over on

Planet CDC. But the second it got hold of me, I started reacting to airborn

stuff as well, like the hit coming off that cleanser I got near. When I react, I

itch. Here, there, all over, all the time. I was digging holes in my skin again.

The myoclonus got worse and hasn't completely cleared up yet. The blurry vision

and nightblindness came right back. I was an emotional wreck (though a lot of

that had to do with Katrina). Being sick just made it

all the worse. Various foods were making me nauseus, and I could barely tell

what was a hit from what wasn't again, except for that cleanser stuff. I finally

got back on the CSM, the reactivity got dialed back down to the somewhat-do-able

range after a few weeks, and I'm pretty much back where I was when the Great

Antibiotic Surprise Adventure started.

The lessons to me were just how little it really takes, how far and how

quickly the illness can go, and how much more vigilant I need to be if I want to

be even sort of well. And I can see even more plainly than before how I got so

sick when others around me took longer to react and didn't get as ill or stay

this way. I had already hit the wall, and some of them hadn't. And now I can

never go back, which the antibiotic experience proved to me once and for all.

(BTW - it doesn't matter which antibiotic it was that got me. Everyone is

different, and there are still some I can take safely if I really need to. I'm

not downing antibiotics, just urging caution.) Anyway, not something I'd care

to repeat, so I hope I took the best information I could get from it. In an odd

way, I'm probably more reconciled to this situation than I ever was before. That

is, I'm still mad as hell about it all, and I'll keep fighting until the

government and these corporations do right by us, but I

understand that no matter what they do, I can't go back. I'm already " cooked " .

It would be all swell if somebody could actually invent a super-duper mold

cleaner-upper, but they can never build one sufficient for the likes of me. It

just is what it is and I have to deal.

Serena

There is no such thing as an anomaly. Recheck your original premise.

...Ayn Rand,

paraphrased

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