Friday, June 8, 2012

SHORT PAUSE: CHASING THE HERX DAY 21

Yesterday I finished the first final draft on parts one and two of my memoir. I say "first final" because I'm sure there will be a second and third final draft, quite possibly a fourth. But the point is I made major changes based on feedback from someone who knows what she's doing. Up next is the third section. But before I started, I just wanted to say, "Hooray for me!"

I've been trying to make myself feel as sick possible on my Lyme meds, and I've found this to be a pretty unpredictable process. Yesterday, for example, I thought I'd feel OK, based where I was in my detox/medical schedule. Not so. Sometimes whole days are really rough. Other days I'll feel good for a few hours, then awful for a few, then good again.

Still, everyday I've had at least a half an hour when I can focus enough to do a little work on my memoir. For the past few weeks that's meant going through the manuscript and looking at just one aspect of it for coherence and consistency--how I describe a certain friend and tell her story, for example. This has leant itself well to the type of short windows of concentration I have right now.

The most important thing, which I have to keep reminding myself over and over, is that I can't put writing before medical considerations. Not now. I'm fighting to get my life back once and for all, so every decision has to be about hitting Lyme as hard as I can. I've told myself I have to increase the Lyme herbs, as tempting as it has been at moments to increase them slowly so that I can focus better on writing the next day, or have energy for babysitting my neice and nephew. But that's not where it's at right now. I want my whole life back, not just parts of it.

Still, it's nice that incidentally I've gotten a little work done.

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