Too Far Down the Rabbit Hole

What followed was even more amazing. Olivia began saying we had bed bugs, as that’s where the itching took place. She named them Darlie and Marlie and began to draw cute little pictures of them. At one point, she had me hold a knitting needle up to her back toward the end of a treatment so Darlie and Marlie could jump on and she carefully carried it out for Daddy to see.

Most amazingly, Olivia began sleeping soundly and she started to grow for truly the first time in her life. The enlarged lymph nodes on her neck decreased in size and her vision improved. Her doctors were both puzzled and amazed. We quietly celebrated, knowing they would be unlikely to believe us if we had told them our story.

I wish this had been our happy ending. We truly didn’t care what name we gave to the illness that was making us sick. We just wanted desperately to get better. Unfortunately, gradually we all lost ground, Olivia with rages, extreme sensitivity to allergens, and finally with a low frequency hearing loss. When she was in a rage, all I could do was to hold her and repeat over and over she was safe. It calmed her. She became a mouse or a bird whenever nervous or frightened. Making eye contact became more and more challenging. Math became very difficult for Mikayla to comprehend and she endured daily headaches, and much joint and muscle pain. I had an onslaught of neurological symptoms, with grasping and walking becoming frightening challenges. We were too far down the rabbit hole. We needed to know. Were we battling Lyme disease?