If You Can't Say Anything Bad...

...then don't say anything at all.

This common, albeit backwards, saying seems to be my take on this blog.  

Which is, yah know, a good thing. I guess. Although, in our case, this doesn't make for a very post-heavy blog. But that's okay. No sicky = no writey. That's just the way it is around here.

When you think about it that way, I'm glad to see such a blah, unattended-to blog here. Sorry for my readers who are looking for more info... but happy for us that Sweetie's been well. 

Well, I'm here with an update, so you know what that must mean...

Duh, duh, DUH....

Actually, she's still been okay. But... just not herself. Maybe it's not the Lyme at all! Maybe it's the heat, the oppressive humidity, or changing hormones. Maybe all of that! Maybe that's it. But, whatever, she hasn't been right, and Hubby and I have taken notice.

Let me back up some...

So you may have remembered from this other post that we've been slowly reducing Sweetie's herbal supplements dosage, under doctor's watch, with an eye to eventually getting her off of it completely. She's been on just one pill every morning for the last 5 weeks, and today was to be her last day of that. Nothing more. Done. Complete. Off of everything. 

Until...

Hubby and I noticed her, over this last week or so, just being... more quiet. Tired. Blah. Grumpy. Whiney. Not all the time. But a goodly noticeable amount of time. And I've noticed her running off to the bathroom a fair amount, out of the blue, too. Just not herself.

We'd ask her how she was, how she was feeling, and she'd say "fine," "I feel good!" She was adamant about this every time, but I also noticed that she rarely, if ever, described herself as "great" as is her usual personally-assessed state. Maybe she's just over the "great" thing? Or she truly, even subconsciously, knew that she was feeling... oh, I don't know... just less than. Not herself. 

The way I see it is that I think she's reverted to feeling her usual Lyme-ridden indescribably yucky sick, yet because she can't put a finger on exactly what it is that she feels yucky about, she just says she's good, or fine, or even great. But Hubby and I can see it. She's just not right. 

It's hard. She's definitely not outright sick. Lord knows I've heard of much, much worse off cases of Lyme, and I'm thankful every day that Sweetie is managing so well with what she's been handed. But still... we don't like seeing her any less than how we know her to be when she's feeling well. 

And maybe it's the fact that she was getting so close to being off the herbals that made me start taking more careful notice of her day-to-day behavior and health. Because, honestly, she's been so well that I've almost forgotten that she has Lyme at all. I've almost convinced myself that, hey, the herbals and all the antibiotics have actually killed it all off! She's actually Lyme-free now, because of all she's been on! Or, not even that. It's just, she's been so consistently well that I haven't even given the Lyme a second thought - good or bad. She's just Sweetie again. She's been herself for so long, it's all been a non-issue. 

So, getting so close to being off of everything... yeah, maybe I've just returned to my own hypercritical analysis of her behavior. Carefully assessing how she is to see if taking away the meds is really the best idea. Maybe even seeing behavior that I'm deciding is "new" or "different" when, really, that's just typical Sweetie. 

I'd say that... but Hubby has seen it too. And, when asked, even my mom has admitted that Sweetie has maybe been a bit grumpier than usual, of late. Oh, and, yeah, she has run off to the bathroom a few times at there house when, usually, she'd hardly ever go at all if she was only there for an hour or so. 

And so, we made the decision that we should really alert Sweetie's doctors to the changes we've seen. I also wanted to let the doctor know that Sweetie is currently involved in Theater Camp and is to be part of the culminating production at the end of the month. So, yeah, part of my concern is that I don't want to see her get sicker and either miss some camp days/rehearsals and/or possibly miss the production itself. 

One of the many things I love about Sweetie's doctor - I can email her at any time, even over weekends, and she will respond and diagnose, if she's confidently able to, without even having to see her. As such, she responded to my lengthy email, in which I detailed not only Hubby and my observations but Sweetie's denial of anything being "off." I wondered in the email if we should A) take Sweetie off the herbals, as planned, B) keep her on the 1 pill a day as she's been doing the last 5 weeks, or C) increase her back to 2 pills a day. 

The doc advised option C. Back up to 2 pills a day. 

Okay, then. So be it.

But then, we had to tell Sweetie. I let her know that I wrote to her doctor, telling her how Daddy and I have noticed this change in Sweetie's behavior. 

At first, Sweetie denied everything. She's been fine! She hasn't been whiney! She hasn't been too tired - except that she's been going to bed a bit late recently due to our crazy schedule (true). But we stood our ground and pointed out some specific examples of her off behavior. Hubby asked her point blank if she'd agree that she's been low energy recently. With that, she didn't deny it anymore. She agreed. She hasn't been herself. Before I could go on to say that her doctor wants us to increase her dosage, Sweetie stated that she thinks she should just stay at 1 pill a day until her current bottle runs out. But when I said, in fact, that her doctor wants us to have Sweetie go back to 2 pills a day, Sweetie said okay.

No fights. Not particularly upset, really at all, that the plan to stop meds had been whisked away from her. Nothing. Peace.

To further solidify the decision, I reminded Sweetie how much I trust her doctor, and before I could present reasons for this trust, Sweetie said, "I know, I know! She's Lyme literate and knows what she's talking about."

Like I said. Peace with the decision. It's just the way it is.

This discussion was just before bedtime for Sweetie - a time when, for the last 5 weeks, she's NOT been taking a pill, as her once-a-day has been in the morning. She asked if she should start that night with the second pill. We said she might as well. 

That was Tuesday night of this week.

Today is Friday and - wow! I took Sweetie to camp this morning, as I have the other days this week, and she was all talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. The other mornings? Tired. Silent. Blah. One word answer to questions. And it's not like she's had a boring week and today was just the first morning she had interesting things to tell me about. She's in theater camp! She's got singing and choreography and lines and new friends and camp games and swimming and all sorts of other things she should have/could have been jabbering on about all week. But, nope. Nothing. Until today. Heck, I don't even remember what she was talking about in the car this morning, but I definitely remember that none of it was at all what I'd call important. It was all just silly kid yammering. It was joyful and silly and energetic. For the first time this week. For the first time in a couple weeks!

It was Sweetie again.

And it was great.