A Typical Day in the Life of a PANS Family

"Mommy, are you angry with me?" My son asks for the 13th time. Only because my daughter is having a meltdown and is yelling at me until I begin harrumphing and seething and threatening. 

Background: My daughter had a sleep over from Saturday to Sunday, and another from Monday to Tuesday. It's vacation week and I want her to have fun and play with friends. But now it's time to catch up on all that homework she never completed and/or turned in. Some of it she did, she claims. Some of it was thrown out (before it made its way to the teacher.) Some of it is in her locker. Say what? Yes, Lyme has played professional ping pong with her executive functioning skills. My head is spinning from her disorganization. Her head must be doing laps.

Needless to say, she is having a meltdown. She asks me why I hate her so much. Claims I'm a bad mother. I admit it, I smirk. Privately, though. She yells at me and if I don't answer within three seconds because I am responding to an important email on my computer, she gets angry at me, thinks I'm ignoring her and decides not to answer me when I speak to her.

My son is chilling on my bed and asking if I am angry with him. He's recovering from IVIG and has a cold on top of that (OCD = going through tissues boxes.) No, I'm not angry with him, I say. He asks me if I am angry with his sister. Yes, I say. Do you love her still? he asks. Yes, I love her, I answer. This is a typical 14 year old boy when he's not sick. Are you angry with me? he asks again. And again. And again. And then, suddenly, I feel ANGER coursing through me and and I want shout "Shut the -- up! Dammit! I'm NOT angry with you!" Although by now, I am angry and I need to make space from my boy whose cold goes to his brain.

"Mommy, you should stop working. You work too hard," my son argues as I tap away on my computer, trying to get more publicity for the Lyme Disease Challenge and very happy to ignore my daughter's rants. I'm not feeling guilty for being on the computer now; I had quality time with the kids today. I made time to read my book (but that's another story.) I'm on vacation and in the past 24 hours alone, I helped cook dinner, lay down with my son at midnight when he said he felt nausea even though I was falling asleep, fried up gluten-free chocolate chip pancakes for the kids (including the husband,) and took the kids to the park, which was about 40 degrees but sunny.

Is "working on" the Lyme Disease Challenge work? Heck, it's PLAY compared to real life. Truly, I can lie down on my bed and monitor the websites and mail, post, and send out press releases from the privacy of my bedroom with music in the background. I can stretch my Lyme-infected back and message friends simultaneously. I can check on www.facebook.com/panslife and update articles. Computer = lightweight compared to all the stuff that goes on at home.

And quite frankly, I only have so many spoons because Lyme fatigues me (you've read about the Spoon Theory, yes?) So working on the LDC and PANSlife gives me a chance to REST before doing something more active, unless I'm having to stress my brain a great deal, in which case I need to read to relax.

Back to my son. He mumbles to my daughter to do something for the woman who has enslaved her (moi.) Even in the midst of a flare, he keeps some semblance of a sense of humor. I sneer. He smiles but barely.

My daughter comes in and apologizes. "I apologize for my behavior." Yes, the line is right out of The Giver. I accept it and she hugs me. Just another day on the home front.