About this Blog

~Hi, my name is Courtney. I was a full time college student, starting to be a dancer, and used to work with kids part time, living on my own until my illness disabled me.
~I became sick in 2005. I created this blog in the summer of 2006 to record my "headache" diary and to see if anyone finds it interesting.
~12/2006 I lost my job then after, failed a year of college.
~2/2007 Dx Lyme Disease with Bartonella: prescribed 8 months of oral antibiotics. I'm not even sure if I ever had the Lyme Disease.
~11/2007 The doctor took me off medicines while I was still improving but not fully recovered.
~6/2008 Dx Chiari I Malformation by a neurosurgeon in Beverly Hills.
~8/2008 Decompression and Lamenectomy helped 80% of my problems.
~2/2009 Dx Hypermobility by an Orthopedic Surgeon/School Doc: Started PT, dancing, going to school and working.
~6/2009 Started working full time as an Infant-Toddler teacher, which requires lifting. Dancing part time, maybe I'll finish school eventually...lol
~12/2009 Dx Chronic Sinusitis: Stopped dancing due to constant infections.
~2/2010 Sinus Surgery & complication: Severe Epistaxis: Became severely anemic.
~3/2010: Dx Ehlers Danlos Syndrome: by Geneticist
~4/2011: Switched jobs, now work at a Pre-K teacher for 3 and 4 year olds. Less lifting!
~5/2011: Started PT and exercising again

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

"i'm new" from PTSD HealthBoards.com

i've just been watching and posting some but i wanted to share this time. I first went in to my therapist to talk about all the issues pertaining to having and dealing with a life threatening illness. and then i realized i was having more and more phobias. i thought hey! i'm better practically shouldnt i be happy? so the cycle began. or shall i say i realized my cycle. so last week i had a breakthrough and realized where my phobias were stemming from kinda. i was happy. then told my therapist and opend the can of worms and all this week i've been a wreck! in and out of reality, dazed, and so upset cuz i cant even go to school or be productive in any real way. i was beating myself up because i thought i was just anxiety prone and it was my fault right?

well tonight i went to mcdonalds to get a burger. it brings good memories of when i worked there and ate a certain meal all the time. this time it brought all the bad memories with it. and i realized i'm not anxiety prone from birth. I've been through alot of trauma and i've just been on hypervigilant mode since! now i can relax and i dont like it cuz all this is comming out! all the phobias werent just that, they were stemming from me stuffing it all down ready for my next move to survive.

at least i know now that i'm not crazy. but it sucks cuz thats one of my traumatic things from high school my step dad saying there was a demon in me and my mom saying i was a tough kid with problems since i was born. i'm still paranoid about that. though i know the truth cuz people tell me.

anyways whats the next step? acknowledging i had traumatic things happen to me? i feel selfish, like suck it up courtney, you need to survive. thats what goes through my head. yet i'm not surviving like this.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

does your stress disable you? from PTSD Healthboards.com

I feel like i go in and out of reality so often that i cant focus or go to school clean house... i wish i could just think away all my problems and then boom i'm back to happy me who could manage a job full time school and be independent. it takes so much energy to hype myself up to go to school and study. then i just stress and want to get away from it all again. right now the only calm i have is if i zone out. but then i'm not productive. i feel weak emotionally. like i tell myself "comon courtney! get yourself together, dont be so selfish and be responsible. act like an adult!" but i just can't. it doesnt help that last week in therapy i left feeling like i just opened up a can and its only going to start spilling out. but i cant help but think that i will always be this way and its only my fault.

can anyone relate?

feel grimey

does anyone feel grimey inside their body? like they have an infection? don't laugh but you know when you get a skin infection and its all pus and stuff? i feel that way about my inside my body. and i feel grimy. sometimes (not recently thought) i would feel like this grimeyness would seep out of my skin. can anyone relate?

Saturday, November 03, 2007

natural disasters from PTSD Healthboards.com

well my grandma had cancer that almost killed her then a year later i became disabled lost my job then had to drop school because of a serious illness. and having heard about all these disasters with katrina and the tsunami and such i am hypervigilant about these types of things. my main thing is "anything could happen at any time!!!" right now i'm shaking thinking about these things.

does anyone feel this way: i get anxious at night when i'm tired and worry but tonight i stopped to just feel my feelings and they werent worry at all but a feeling like i'm uncomfortable just having things be okay and not worrying about what bad thing is going to happen next... so i let myself be uncomfortable and all i wanted to do was cry. or be sad or whatever. (btw my illness was so in and out for over 9 months and i just recently got over it like a few weeks ago)

triggers...tv and movies PTSD Healthboards.com

since i suffered from a pretty serious illness my triggers involved heaven or afterlife or some other thing that portrayed life being different that it is. i stopped watching scarey movies a while ago when i used to be terrified of loud sounds. and whenever someone brings up or takes light of death or murder or hurting someone i freak. it pretty much is the same in tv and movies. i had to walk out of pirates 3 because jack was in the underworld and they had to turn the boat upside down or whatever to make it back to the real world. freaked me out.

pretty much better from Lyme Healthboards.net

just wanted to say i was infected for 1 1/2 years with lyme and bartonella (only the bartonella was confirmed by tests) found a lyme doctor in february and was treated with oral antibiotics for 8 months. we have stopped the antibiotics and i am rehabilitating myself. i plan on doing another protocol just to wipe it out entirely. i cannot do the things i used to do yet but i'm not really sure i want to. i hope this brings you hope. i'm not fully better but i can function.

another thing i didnt realize i would have a problem with is Post traumatic stress from the whole thing. im young and right before i got really sick my grandma almost died from cancer. so that really traumatized me being sick myself. anyways i'm seeing a health psychologist who specializes in trauma as well. its great but i had still feeling lousy emotionally.
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