Just Angela

This blog has proven more difficult to keep than I imagined.

A few days ago my friend and mail lady, Sheri, stopped by my house on her break. I mentioned the antibiotic protocol to her and after less than a minute of explanation I said something to the effect of, "Oh well. Let's change the subject. What's new at your house?"

Sheri smirked.

"What?" I asked her, thinking she was ready to divulge something juicy.

"You always do that," she replied.

"Always do what?" I asked, confused and off-balance (this time not as a result of the arthritis).

"You always change the subject when it comes to your health. You don't talk about it."

She was right. I don't like to talk about it.

As a senior in high school my English teacher required that we map out the next ten years of our lives, then describe our 28-year-old selves. I wish I still had that hand-written graph and final depiction. I'm pretty sure I didn't identify myself as chronically ill. It was not my aspiration to be the sick girl, the girl who overcame rheumatoid arthritis to accomplish normal things like raising children, sustaining a marriage (pain doesn't help the ol' libido much, by the way), and helping my husband maintain a home-based business.

Even though it's been twenty years since I created my original vision for my future, free of illness, I still hang tenaciously on to that picture of myself, my healthy self. I fear that talking about the sick Angela will cause my memory of healthy Angela to dim, much like our memories of deceased loved ones become faded over time.

However, I see now that possibly a deeper purpose of this blog--for me--is to force me to stop denying that sick Angela exists so that she and healthy Angela can unite to become Angela. Just Angela.

The Journey Begins

On February 15 I have an appointment with a doctor in Tulsa who will hopefully agree to prescribe The Antibiotic Protocol created by Thomas McPherson Brown and outlined in The New Arthritis Breakthrough by Henry Scammell.

Sorry, I'm not savvy enough to make that picture an actual link.

I have some reading up to do before then so that I can make an educated, coherent presentation to Dr. B. The Antibiotic Protocol treats rheumatoid arthritis with low-dose, intermittent antibiotics--usually 100 mg minocycline every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Why? Because Dr. Brown found that arthritis and other so-called "autoimmune" disorders are caused by a mycoplasma infection, which has been documented in double-blind, placebo-based studies at the National Institutes of Health.

More information about this treatment can be found at http://www.rheumatic.org/ as well as at http://roadback.org/.

I'll be posting more information along with my symptoms...or lack of symptoms...as I go.