I have Lyme! My mom teared up and I gave her a hug. She was happier than I was to have a positive test result after 4 years of bouncing from doctor to doctor. I know Lyme isn't good news overall, but its good news to have something to treat. More good news is that as far as can be determined, I don't have any co-infections.

So it's hard to say how long I've had it...could be 3-4 years, could be 10...but Dr. E said she is originally planning on putting me on oral antibiotics for at least 3-6 months with 1 month followups to keep tabs on my progress.

I'm so relieved. I know its an undetermined road ahead, and there's no set amount of time for recovery but...that the possibility is even there!!

Before I had CFIDS. Now I have CFIDS that is turning to Fibromyalgia...which is CAUSED by Lyme...which can be treated.

Who knows, maybe in a couple semesters I will be strong enough to pursue transfering to NYU...the dream school I put on hold because of my health.

I could just bounce off the walls right now!

I can't stress enough how unreal it is to have a piece of paper that says "positive" and a set treatment regiment...antibiotics...followups...REAL followups to check on PROGRESS...not followups to see if this new medication made things hurt less. Followups as exclamation points, not question marks.

*sigh!*

Thank you guys for everything, I'll certainly be sticking around and I warn you'll hear more from me once I start to herx and have to deal with the more disheartening parts of treatment.

But right now, I'm on cloud9 because somewhere in my future, this could all be behind me!

Feels good, huh, fellow lymie?

I think you have an excellent doctor and a very good prognosis if you
keep a positive attitude,
remember some of the weird things that show up as symptoms are the disease and not you, keep your immune system strong
and keep coming here if you have questions or need comfort.

I just have to remark I have the coolest high school friends. 3 of them threw me an informal gathering with cake, music (we're all musicians so..provided by ourselves), board games, and jokes to "celebrate"my Lyme disease...now I know this sounds weird, and a huge step past "relief", but I have a great sense of humor about myself and my friends share this "make light of things" to deal with it.

Plus they were all just as happy as I was to finally pinpoint what is wrong. So we celebrated the fact that i'm not a "medical enigma" as my one friend puts it. From the hostess, I received a couple gift certificates to this little cafe/ice cream shop near her dorm as incentive to visit her in the coming weeks (lol) and then one of the guys wrote me a song, which poked fun at the situation while also expressing concern.

It's hard to explain, but you know...a bunch of 18 year olds, what kind of humor do you expect, hehe.

It was a long night, but it felt really great to know they care enough about me to plan a little party. It's like opening a new chapter of my life, and the fact that they threw a party made it reminiscent of a birthday...a re-birthday perhaps. Almost symbolic of how my life will now change since I can finally do something about all my health problems.

So now only am I not insane in the sense that my illness is real, but it seems I'm not the only one around here who sees this as a milestone.

So I reiterate, I have the coolest friends. It was so sweet of them to give me special night to kickoff this new phase of my life.

Thats great that ur friends have stuck by you thru the illness... cherish them many people lose their friends when they get sick.

Hoping you have a good llmd and a speedy recover and u get to go to nyu.

I know, I value them very much. I miss them now that we're all off at college, and I'm thankful that we all attend college in our home state so that we can see each other once in a blue moon when everyone's home for the weekend (of course I'm home every weekend and every day since I commute, lol).

I notice you're from jersey too...what exit