Dr. Quack

Yesterday I drove an hour and a half to see my first genuine Lyme-literate doctor. In blog tradition I have to call him something. I decided to call him Dr. Quack. Not because he is a quack -- he may save my life, and I plan on helping him do that. It's not like, if he doesn't help me, then I'll have stuck him in advance with the right name. It's more like using the irony potential of the universe in my favor. I'll call him Dr. Quack hoping that the universe can have a laugh at my expense. And hoping that the moniker will become one of affection and honor, like being called one of Femi-Mommy's biatches.

Anyway, Dr. Quack is going to load me up on antibiotics, for which I will be getting a port, which is a permanent place in your body where they can pump in drugs. I'll blog the details later, but I may wind up on antibiotics for two years. I liked and respected that he told me two stories of ALS patients he had treated who died anyway. But Dr. Quack is hopeful in my case. The plan is to start the infusions in early February. He also loaded me up with recommendations regarding a wide range of foil-hat therapies, ranging from cells derived from shark fins (no thanks) to chakra massage. He shrugged and said he didn't know why some of these things appear to help some people, but they're worth trying.

I listened to Tom Waits on my night drive home.

Left grip is 21 pounds (21, 21, 17), right grip is 75 pounds (71, 68, 75), left leg balance is 4.33 seconds, and right leg is 30 seconds.