Thank You

Thank you to all who helped us with our medical expenses.

We will always remember your kindness.

Sincerely,

The Hausfelds

Another Lyme thing: the good, the bad & the ugly…

I have these huge red Volcano-crater spots on my hands. Dr J says they are the result of my immune system finding cysts there and the flesh getting destroyed in the process. The Good? Immune system is FINALLY, after 7 yrs., kicking in. The Bad? an’t do anything abt them. The Ugly? MY HANDS!!!!

Spine acting up again. Numb & tingles on left side, mostly entire arm up to neck, in shoulders in back, and in middle of back. What else can tghis thing do? I should’t ask that should I?

Bullying…..

by Kippy Steele Horak, my friend

The boy you punched in the hall today. Committed suicide a few minutes ago. That girl you called a slut in class today. She’s a virgin. The boy you called lame. He has to work every night to support his family. … That girl you pushed down the other day. She’s already being abused at home. That girl you called fat. She’s starving herself. The old man you made fun of cause of the ugly scars. He fought for our country. The boy you made fun of for crying. His mother is dying. You think you know them. Guess what? You don’t!

It felt like Springtime

on this February morning…. Almost all of our Feb. mornings have been this way. A very little bit of snow a couple of times, but it didn’t last. Just enough to be pretty. I’m thankful that it’s almost March b/c usually by then, it’s “early Spring.” I always felt that summer was June-Aug., Fall Sept.-Nov., Winter Dec.-Feb. & wonderful Spring, March-May. All my bulbs are up, and I saw a tiny daffodil blooming on a roadside bank! Daffodils in FEBRUARY???? The sun feels so warm….Lymies, get out of that house in which you have entombed/isolated yourselves and enjoy the sunshine for 20 min (or more w sunscreen.) It feels like SPRING!!

How I found out I had Lyme…

Based on dates of symptoms in my medical records, and even looking at pictures of me, there’s a dramatic shift from 1992 to 1993. My beloved, close. very much needed grandmother died in Dec 1992. We only knew for 8 weeks that she had terminal cancer. The pain from that was indescribable. My nasty divorce was a cake walk compared to losing her, and I did get sick. No one realized that my immune system had just been destroyed by the stress and pain, and had surrendered to Lyme disease. Over time, lyme spirochetes build up, hide in your own cells, or in cysts. Over time I began to have many, many symptomsbut the symtom was treated, nobody connected the dots til Jan 2005, when I went to a Lyme specialist and also a Lyme patient, who said despite my many negative Lyme test results, I had almost all of the long list of symptoms, and almost certainly was a late stage Lyme patient. She said there are 260+ substrains of Lyme in the US alone, and if you don’t have the one strain they are testing, your test is negative. There are 4 tickborne specialty labs in US, and my bloodwork was sent to one of them, Igenex. More later…

It’s already started…

Tim changed jobs in December, and we had to get a new health insurance plan. I should have refilled all my Rxs before we changed b/c the price never goes down – it goes up, with a new plan. Our new insurance will only cover half my anxiety med, 1/2 the dose, so I have to make do. Not only that, they screwed around with it long enough that I ran out & had none for 5 days (on this med you should never do that cold turkey.) My body doesn’t absorb vitamins (Lyme damage) so I have to take compounded shots. They won’t cover that at all. And Lyme cysts & damage on my hands…we had to fight & fight to get cream for that. These prescriptions are over $200/month, and I take something like 30 prescription meds. We already pay for all the supplements w/o insurance help. We have not filled a single prescription in the past 2+ months since we went to United Healthcare without a serious hassle in getting it…

Welcome to Obamacare….

Blue Cross Blue Shield is at it again

To: Claims Appeals
Re: Kelley’s claims on the date of 12/10/2011
2/19/2012
Dear Sir or Madam:

This is a formal response and appeal to your denial of our daughter’s health benefits on 12/10/2011. She was sent to the emergency room by her obstetrician, and has several bills outstanding from that date.. The policyholder, my husband, Timothy S. Hausfeld, was employed by Keane, Inc. and participated/paid for medical coverage for his family on that date. Therefore, any of our medical bills should be covered by your policy in place on that date.

Secondly, Keane’s official pay and benefits period goes from Saturday to Saturday, and as 12/10/2011 was a Friday, 12/11/11 would have been a Saturday. He has paid for coverage thriough 12/11/2011 and should have been covered into the next day. Please review these decisions and get back to us as soon as possible. Thank you for your consideration and prompt response.

Regards,

Karen Hausfeld

Timothy S Hausfeld

Better…but at a plateau

I’m so much better after over 7 years of brutal treatments. I still have a lot of pain, weakness and as always, fatigue. The “brain fog” I think is now permanent brain damage, from the brain infection. But Dr J saved my life. There’s no doubt about it. I am working very hard at spring cleaning and keeping Miss Sophie, and going over to try to help Kelley. I would not have been able to do that just 6 months ago. I think my Wednesdays keeping (helping) Doodlebug prepared me and I worked to get into better shape. Lost 26 lbs. Many more to go tho!

There’s one last brutal txt Dr J wants to give me to bump me up closer to remission. Two to three months of IV txt, 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off, two drugs at a time. He said I will be unable to keep Sophie on my “on” weeks so amazingly, my brother offered to come out those weeks, and then my mother said she’d do one day a week (even with Doodlebug (James, my 9 month old nephew.) She keeps him part time Tues & Thurs but all day Wed. (which is why I went out Weds.)

I want to do that- the idea of getting close to remission is so eciting! But please pray for my eldest daughter, in Greece. She’s been very tired and sick for a year now. She denies she has Lyme but her husband thinks so. Treatment in Europe is hard to find. She saw how sick I got and asked “where is my kick-ass mom?” I want to be her again. Granted, a 49 yr old version rather than 30, when I believe I started getting really sick (Lyme stole 20 yrs of still prime time and maximum earning power….grrr…) but still I can feel her trapped in there now. Shows me anew that whe the pedal hits the metal where I can really turn…my family.

Not my church, not my so-called friends, except a very few who are still around. And when people like this get sick, those who stood and watched while 4 people survive, laying around the living room w/ IVs running, unablw to more than cold Ensure shakes a lot of the time. Taking care of the animals, taking all our meds, and keeping up w dishes, laundry, vacuuming was all we could do. But most people never want to see that so they vanish. Still a bit bitter (Lord help me with that pls!) can you tell?Three in particular in my town, and several who live faily close and had been friends for years….gone.

But I have learned who my friends are, and I’m getting better, and best still, my younger daughter& her newborn daughter, son are in remission. I hope Sophie is completely Lyme-free but I truly believe few babies have no spirochetes.

BUT…This will be my 5th PICC line…let’s roll!!

Please pass the butter…

We quit margarine 15 years+ ago when I learned most of this in a class!!!  They said birds & insects won’t touch it but they go right for butter!  Long live natural foods!!!…..me (KEH)

 

Original Writer says….. Having Worked at Unilevers Premier Margarine Factory in the UK for 1 Year, as a Management Trainee, and then in Sri Lanka Managing Margarine Manufacture, I can safely admit that what you are about to read is true !!

Pass The Butter … Please .

This is interesting . .. .

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys.  When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back. 

It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow colouring and sold it to people to use in place of butter.  How do you like it?   They have come out with some clever new flavourings….   

DO  YOU KNOW.. The difference between margarine and butter?  

Read on to the end…gets very interesting!   

Both  have the same amount of calories.

Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.

Eating margarinecan increase  heart diseasein women by 53%over  eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent  Harvard  Medical Study.

Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in  other foods.

Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and only because  they are added!

Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavours of other foods.

Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

And now, for Margarine..
 
Very High in Trans fatty acids.

Triples risk of coronary heart disease …

Increases  total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and  lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)

Increases the risk of cancers up to five times..

Lowers quality of breast milk

Decreases immune response.

Decreases insulin response.

And  here’s the most disturbing fact… HERE IS THE PART THAT  IS  VERY INTERESTING!

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC… And shares 27 ingredients withPAINT

These facts alone were enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).     

Open a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area.  Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:  

*  no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)

*  it does not rot or smell differently because it has nonutritional value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow.  Why?   Because it is nearly plastic .  Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?  

Share This With Your Friends…..(If you want to butter them up’)! 

Chinese Proverb:
When someone shares something of value with you and you benefit from it,  you have a  moral obligation to share it with others.  

Pass the BUTTER PLEASE

Consignment shop!

I’ve just discovered a consignment shop….already at the Spring de-clutter. Some things I just need to recover some of our funds from as we tackle our financial recovery. Much has gone to the Salvation Army, AmVets, and the Blue Cross Hospice. But something were expensive back in the day and some rarely if ever used. And I’ve given up on anyone teaching me how to sell on ebay, tho some things, if rejected by Ebay, might end up on ebay somehow. What do you all do with your stuff? Esp now that we spent so much on Lyme txt. I’m so glad I’m enough better to try to do this!!

Is it Spring? My daffodil & others sure think so.

I’m worried about them…we have made it past the middle of Feb but we still have a mionth to go! Some “real cold” but not much. And we’re already getting stinkbugs in the house. I think they hibernate inside the siding and now that the sun is really warm on that side…ugh. Can’t bomb the house b/c of Sophie though….not to mention puppies that should be coming along this Spring. Anyone have an answer??