Oh dear,deer

I haven't been able to collect my thoughts well enough to express them in a new entry until now. After 2 months of waiting I had the opportunity to meet again with Dr. Smith to review my biopsy results. The muscle tissue was completely normal so he had decided against doing the respiratory chain enzyme tests. He reexamined me and found deficits that I was keenly aware of but had not mentioned to him. This reassured me that he was "on his game" and not on autopilot. I had him thinking and that was good. He again came back to the idea of Lyme disease. He explained that lab testing is tricky in this illness and only a few labs in the country do it well. He wanted to send off studies to IGeneX but before my blood would even be drawn we had to pay for them as the company doesn't fool around with billing insurance companies. The total cost was $270.00, best money we've ever spent (not including the fee for our marriage license). Then we went back into a holding pattern.
Patience had not been one of my stronger virtues but this illness has offered me ample practice to perfect this trait. Recently Dr. Smith emailed me to let me know the tests did confirm Lyme disease and yesterday we spoke about what should happen next. He recommends I see a specialist he knows in Colorado Springs. This physician is well acquainted with Lyme and will be aggressive in treating me. This is what I want because my reading on the subject suggests this approach gives me the best chance at a significant recovery. I have a long way to go if I want to resume my practice (my last day was on the 12th) and even longer to go if I hope to do OB again.
My illness presents many lessons, some personal and some professional. I resolve to explore them and find a way to discover the positive aspects of my personal medical journey so that other patients will benefit from the examination of those experiences- the silver lining in a very dark cloud.