It's amazing the North won.

Sometimes I think it's amazing the northern states won the war.  Since they're far more prone to auto-immune diseases, and Lyme Disease, it's amazing they all didn't call in sick to work.  I sure as heck wouldn't have helped the war effort.

So them northern states.  Why are you more likely to get an auto-immune disease in the northern states than you are in the southern states?  Not hard to figure that one out.  Yeah, the sun!  The vitamins the sun provides can stave off a whole lot of disease.  That much has been proven, but my little extra theory?  When you're stuck in your house for 6-9 months out of the year, depressed, eating too much, not working out enough, it's kind of common sense.  Anything could get sick under those circumstances.  Where we live in Idaho, it can start snowing as early as September, and can snow as late as June.  It snowed the day we gave birth to our daughter; June 7th!  We've only been here 5 years, but someone told us they remember a really bad blizzard on the fourth of July.  They all had to watch the fourth of July parade from their cars.  That's just pathetic.  I am from Dallas, Texas.  The place where you're swimming on Valentines Day.  Where you pray it'll be even a little cold, like at least 60 degrees.  That way you can try to feel like it's Christmas.  You're still mowing your lawn a few days before Christmas.  Then it's "cold" for about a month or two.  By cold I mean like 40's or 50's.  When it's cold here, it's like -40.  It's not fun.  When you have four small kids, you spend two hours getting them dressed for winter play.  Then they're cold in 20 minutes and you're back in the house.  Not worth the effort.  You have to have money to have fun in the snow.  Everyone snow mobiles up here.  Everyone but the poor college graduates.  You can only take so much of the same four walls in your house.  I would totally have parties, friends over all the time, but ya know what that would require?  Me cleaning.  M.S. says, "yeah right, ya old bag!"

So to go along with the dumbness of the cold, and living in a northern state, I wanted to touch base on Lyme Disease.  Turns out there's a good chance I have Lyme Disease, too.  I know, lucky me, right?  Let's keep adding all the colors of the rainbow to what I get to rock.  What color do you think represents Lyme?  Yeah, lime!  :)

Pretty, isn't it?  That's a good color if you're gonna rock out to something stupid like Lyme Disease.  It could be a beautiful addition to the purple, orange and blue I'm already fighting.  Pretty rainbow, huh?

So Lyme Disease isn't something you really hear about until/unless you're in a northern state.  I wouldn't wanna live up north, so don't ask me why ticks would.  Lyme Disease is transported to you when you're bit by an insect.  It's a common misconception that Lyme Disease comes only from ticks, or that it's only in northern states.  It's true it's most common in northern states, but you can get it anywhere.  It's also not true that it's only transmitted by ticks.  It can be contracted through spiders, mosquitoes, um, anything that can bite you.  :)  So why talk about Lyme when you already have M.S. and Fibromyalgia?  'Cause hawt dang, Lyme COULD be my M.S. and Fibromyalgia.  Lyme can be a great deceiver.  It looks and acts exactly like M.S. and Fibromyalgia.  The MRI I got, which already proved I have holes in my brain (a dead give away for M.S.) can ALSO be Lyme.  There's a chance I may not even have M.S.  In every shape, way and form, Lyme could be duping me and my doctors.  The symptoms of M.S. and Fibromyalgia ARE Lyme's exact symptoms.  Pretty crazy, huh?  M.S. and Lyme are so much alike, it's not even funny.  So how do you tell the difference?  A simple, freaking blood test.  Can you also believe that?  Makes me sick.  There are no blood tests for Fibromyalgia or M.S.  The only diagnosis for M.S. is an MRI and/or a spinal tap.  No blood work for either disease.  Lyme does show up positive in a simple blood test.  So frustrating.  Why has no one ever tested me for Lyme disease, especially living in a northern state???

So why wonder if it's even Lyme Disease at all?  I'm glad you asked.  My symptoms all started when (we are so freaking stupid to not have made this connection) I was bit by this guy:

Why show you this nasty picture?  'Cause I want you to be as grossed out as I am.  I'm mean like that.  This is a male Hobo spider.  Never heard of them?  Neither had I.  It's a shame, too.  They're more deadly than a Brown Recluse spider.  Ah, you've heard of those, right?  Hobo's are only found in northern states, Brown Recluse are only found in southern states.  The difference in their deadliness?  None.  Hobo's are just as deadly as Brown Recluse spiders.  Turns out they're close family members.  The reason Hobo's are more dangerous?  Brown Recluse spiders, much like their name, are reclusive.  You'd have to go piss off their home to make them mad.  They are terrified of us, and deliberately try to avoid you.  Hobos?  He he, just like their name, they're freaking hobo's, they wanna find them a home; your home!  Most spiders, Brown Recluse included, stay up in higher places to avoid danger, making their webs higher up.  Hobo's don't make webs.  That's right, they run after their prey.  Hobo's can't climb walls, and they don't need to.  They do everything on the ground.  So you're never safe from them.  They're in shoes, under your toilet, always under foot, waiting to eat you.  I know that sounds funny, but it's the dead, freaking honest truth.  Unless you've lived in a northern state, you'll think I'm exaggerating, but these spiders will full on come charge at you, trying to attack you.  Freaking scary, right?  It is!  My sister spends every summer with us from Utah, where they don't have Hobo's like Idaho.  She was charged by a Hobo when she was in the bathroom.  They literally come charging at you, trying to bite you.  She had a heart attack, but that wasn't even the first experience.  We saw a Hobo at least every other day.  They're rampant.  It's amazing we're not all dead up here.  They get massive, too.  So imagine a massive, attacking, running faster than you can, spider.  They're freaking fast, I kid you not.  They'll be on you faster than you can decide what furniture to jump on.  This is why they're deadlier than Brown Recluse spiders.  Fast, aggressive, never in a web, always on ground level.  Boys are more toxic than girls.  This is what I was bit by.  A stupid head, Hobo spider.  My family, extended family included, had nightmares for weeks after I got bit.  And once again, unless you've actually been bit by a Hobo, you'll never understand how bad that feels.  Try M.S. and Fibromyalgia X30.  That's the worst feeling I've ever felt.  Then you're also wondering if you're gonna die, too.  People die from Hobo/Brown Recluse bites.  It's a wee bit unsettling to have to deal with that thought on top of feeling like you're dying anyways.  I got bit on my hip.  Everyone said, "you're so lucky it was a fattier tissue area."  Not true.  Turns out the fattier it is, the worse off you are.  It has more area to spread, plus it'll keep going until it's eating the bone away.  Yay, who needs a hip?  I went to the emergency room, go figure they don't do anything for spider bites.  Sent me home, waiting to die, lose a leg, I didn't know.  The extra creepy, ironic about this, was that my co-worker had just been bit by a Hobo spider two weeks before I did.  She almost had to have her arm amputated.  It went all the way down to her bone and nerves within three days.  She was at the hospital getting her dead tissue scraped out and drained every day.  Went around with a permanent I.V. in her arm for weeks.  Scared the butt crap out of me, especially getting bit only two weeks later.  She is a massage therapist and almost lost her lively hood because of a stupid spider.  Her arm never healed.  It's severely scarred and damaged, even years later.  Scared me, did I say that???  I bit the dust on that one.  We had a friend who happened to have a black salve concoction.  When it comes to natural things, I know they're good, but I can be a bit skeptical.  Especially with a deadly spider?  Holy moly, that stuff worked.  Like crazy.  It sucked out all the toxins, letting me feel normal only after a few weeks after the bite.  Amazing.  Spider bite symptoms can last months, sometimes years.  Weeks?  I was so lucky.  It left a gigantic crater in my hip, about the size of a quarter, something else I had been fearing, but plumped up really fast.  Now, three years later, you can't even tell where the spider bite was.  It's back to it's normal size and the scar is almost completely gone.  SO amazing!  I was very, very fortunate.  Thank you mother nature!

Anywho, that's my long winded story about Lyme.  When you live in a northern state AND you've been bit by a stupid head, you should definitely get tested for Lyme.  It's so retarded we never thought about the connection.  We really are so stupid.  I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this had been Lyme all along.  That's exactly when my symptoms stared.  Being this sweet, southern belle, (okay, that's a load of crap, but southern all the same) you don't know about Lyme.  It's not something you worry or talk about in Texas.  Come up to Idaho and you start hearing more and more about it.  Shame on my doctors, though, seriously.  I'm not the native here, I'm not the doctor here, and I'm the one who has to mention it.  For shame!  :)  I do my blood test tomorrow, then I have to wait a week for the results.  I'll definitely do an update when I find out if it's Lyme or if it's staying M.S.  It won't change a dang thing if it is Lyme, and I'm almost scared to find out if it is.  I would be angry for the rest of my life.  Lyme can be cured if you catch it immediately.  If you let it go into stage three, which would be, oh I don't know, getting freaking tested three years later, there's nothing they can do at that point.  I would forever be guilty and angry that I now have a miserable disease for life that I could have cured.  In a way, please let it still be M.S.  I don't want to deal with that anger right now.  I know it's not my fault in any way, but to know I could have cured it?  That would torture me for the rest of my life.  C'mon, M.S.!!!  Mamma's rootin' for ya!