...And We All Fall Down
by Dawn Irons
As a child, I was always fascinated with the game of lining up dominos in close sequence, and in a pattern, so that when you tipped one domino, you would set off a chain reaction called the “domino effect.” I would spend hours doing this on the kitchen floor.
As I became older, more mature and uhhh...cynical, I came to see the same pattern of the “domino effect” in my myriad of health problems.
My latest domino to fall has been my hearing. I visited the audiologist last week and she looked at my previous tests from 5 years ago and then compared them to the test she had done that day. In her opinion I should have been
prescribed hearing aids 5 years ago! She showed me the drastic loss of hearing over the last 5 years all graphed out nicely on a chart.
It seems so clinical to discuss the graph and chart, but the frustration of that reality comes to a head when I find myself getting overly irritated because I cannot understand people that are just 2 feet in front of me. I find myself snapping at my family, “Do not speak to me unless you are LOOKING at me! How many times have I told you that??!!”
My family thought that I was just being overly sensitive. Quite often I was a bit taken aback at my own short fuse and
was convinced I just needed a vacation! I am sure they wish I would have taken one too!
Oh yes...the dominos will fall! It is just not so entertaining at this stage in my life!
As I look back on the previous dominos that have taken a tumble, I remember being told that my spine was progressively degenerating, my eyes had swollen optic nerves that could lead to blindness, my joint pain could not be corrected, my brain was swelling, my thyroid was malfunctioning, my liver was not healthy, my muscles and tendons may ultimately land me in a wheel chair, and most recently the audiologist told me my hearing could not be reversed or repaired and that she expected I would end up totally and completely deaf.
Now please tell where I can exchange all these dominoes for the FUN kind I had as a child! I don’t find these new dominos to my liking...at all!!
I was recently reading a research paper on the multi-systemic symptoms of Lyme disease as confirmed through MANY professional peer-reviewed journals. I ran across another book where a so-called Lyme “expert” said that, “the more widespread and peculiar the symptoms are, the more likely the complaint is psychosomatic.” In other words, this doctor believes that the more
systems that are involved, the person is probably just a psych-case and it is really all in their heads!
Of course, that “expert” advice was quoted by a doctor who was part of a committee that chose to use only 400 out of a total of 18,537 published studies, and chose only the 400 that agreed with their “expert” opinion; all the while ignoring the literature that they did not agree with.
The treatment guidelines that were written by that very committee came under the investigation of the Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and was found to have copious amounts of varying conflicts of interest and financial
gain. So forgive me if I doubt the “expert” advice from a doctor that settled out of court on an anti-trust investigation to avoid criminal charges.
So for every Lyme patient that was ever bounced from doctor-to-doctor and was told it was all in their head, be comforted in the fact that there were over 18,000 peer-reviewed journal articles that agreed with and proved your claims; but they were quietly swept under the rug for the financial gains of the committee that wrote the 2006 guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease...all proven to be true by the Connecticut Attorney General.
The research is overwhelmingly CLEAR that Lyme disease will affect multiple body symptoms. Be of good cheer! It really is in your brain, your heart, your joints, your endocrine system, respiratory system, your eyes, your ears, your liver...ad
nauseum!
It is my sincere desire, through the outreach and education of the PHA, that I will be able, along with my staff and writers, to offer you hope and encouragement in your journey to wellness.
The dominos may fall, but there is always hope! I have received letters from all across the country (and a few other countries) that have told me the PHA was instrumental in their getting connected to support groups and doctors who could help them reclaim their lives.
Yes, we will all fall down. As the book of Ecclesiastes so beautifully puts it, “If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!”
