A bit about LDN and no such thing as coincidence…

Rather than starting a new thread, I thought I’d just post to this existing one and hope that it may get enough attention, at least the mutually beneficial parts, be of some help to others here. First off is the main reason for my post. I’ll try and make a long story as short as possible here, so please bare with… Not too awful long ago, in one of my weak moments of desire for human contact, I’d posted a brutally honest ad in a venue which will remain nameless. As expected, there were few responses.. two to be exact. One in particular, the second had piqued my interest with her mention of something that may very well give me back some of my former self, maybe even make me well. Not to mention, she is a very attractive, caring, intelligent and talented individual. Being the skeptic I am, I answered her message and we’ve been corresponding since. Complications have kept us from actually meeting, but that may change with time.

Her initial intent seemed to be her wanting to help me. Wow, a perfect stranger wanting to fix me right out of thin air! Could it be? She seemed so sincere and as I read on and talked with her a bit, I was drawn closer by her personality.

She’s been struggling with the immunological after-effects of undiagnosed Lymes Disease for a couple of years and suffering with symptoms similar to many of mine [ours]. Recently, she’d found out about LDN [low dose naltrexone] therapy, a GP and neuro that will ‘off perscribe’ the drug for her treatment. SHe’s since been on it for a matter of about four months and has begun to see some marked improvements in her health.

She had suggested that I read a book written by a woman that has had much success in helping her husband who is stricken with MS to get ‘better’. THe book is titled: ‘Up The Creek With a Paddle’ by Mary Boyle Bradley. I bought the book and am a little over two thirds through it and am quite compelled, if not convinced that I need to push on and further investigate this thing. Her words and personal advancements from the treatment are prompting me to do so.

The drug is cheap, so the treatment isn’t a problem to manage even with my excellent health care plan. I’m fortunate and thankful there. THere’s virtually no ill side effects to boot.. bonus. THe biggest hurdle seems to be in finding a doc and or neuro to run with this line of treatment. SHe has done so and they’re logistically close enough to make this a breeze for me. Well, enough of a breeze as my accomplishing anything these days.. like a trip to the grocery store, only a little farther drive and no lugging packages. Great! I’ve got the doctors names and plan on making arrangements soon. I’d really like to meet her before hand but situations and complexities on her end may be stalling, at least slowing the process. It’s always something, but not insurmountable by any means. So there’s that.

Another bright spot has shown up along with the summer.. a neighbor lady, who moved in to the little duplex across the drive, next the vegatable garden last fall had left a note in my door last spring stating she wanted to meet me but has not wanted to disturb me and included her phone number. I called her the next day and we talked for some time. SHe seemed very nice and offered to do or fetch anything I may need since she was out every day for work and drove by everything on her way. Me, being the stubborn independent sort I am, thanked her and held off until just last week when I’d ran low on Camels and didn’t feel well enough to drive into town. She gladly agreed and showed up as promised. I paid and thanked her as we introduced ourselves and shook hands. I don’t recall shaking her hand but she say’s so.

Up until that point, our contact was only a seldom made phone call to simply keep in touch or check on one another during a storm or power outage. My phone rang the other night at one thirty AM. Considering answering with, ‘This better be either real good or real bad.’ I said hello.. t’was the neighbor lady on her way home from a girls night out and apparently thinking of me. We chatted until she pulled into the horseshoe drive and her lights glowed in my glass entry door making a fitting shadow puppet stage of the adjacent, white closet doors. We’d left it at one of us calling the other back next day and making plans to do something.

Next day, day before yesterday I gave her a ring and asked if she’d like to go along with as I needed to do some grocery shopping. Dinner, afterward at the diner my treat for the pleasure of her accompaniment and help. It was nice and she made a pleasure out of a previously much loathed chore. I think she was impressed with the way I’ve come to accomplish my shopping routine without the use of my cane at the store. Too easy and expensive to leave my cane in the cart, as it’s happened twice before while distracted. It’s sorta dark in the lot, adding to the possibility of such. Luckily, both times I’d gotten it back with a flying trip back there. Good thing it’s only a six mile drive.

She’d called me from work yesterday morning and asked if I’d be interested in a wheel chair if she brought one home. Seems she has a friend that works in a medical supply place and mentioned a perfectly good, high end wheel chair they had and were going to throw out since it’s seat cushion was missing. It was a former rental, sanitized and bagged. I agreed of course and she went on to say how, now we can get out and do some things together without my fear of falling. And it wasn’t even my birthday! And it’s chrome and shiny!! SHe had a way of taking the sting out of such often painful choices forced upon some of us.

I’ve been agonizing for months now over getting a power chair or scooter and have checked into a couple of these, “No out of pocket cost to you.” jive outfits only to find out the jumping through flaming hoops of barbed wire will now begin. Big surprise there. So after abusing enough of these people over the phone to satisfy my mean streak, I pulled the trigger and ordered one, night before the nice neighbor lady brought me home a manual chair. Burns me up that this thing is costing me more than some perfectly good cars have in the past but it’s better than rotting in this little house, day after day. At least now, I’ll be able to don my Darth Vader looking, Simpson Street Bandit racing helmet, left over from my biker years and chase the chickens around the manor. Wouldn’t that be something?

So it seems, even an isolator such as myself is sometimes bestowed with these little miracles and angels that bare them.. So afterall, there is more than cheese at the end of the tunnel. For these kind souls, I am truly grateful and blessed to have them in my life. How fulfilling!