You will get beyond this
My story
My hellish experience with this infection took place in 2020. The timeline is murky. There was a stretch of about three or four months from the time I discovered it. During that stretch I was in hell. But I have good reason to believe I had the infection long before that, maybe six months before. And THEN, three months after I was free of my last lesion, one popped up out of nowhere. So, that’s a total of 8-12 months of likely infection, 3-4 months of which I was in constant misery. It was this time of year when I discovered it, so every year around late August and early September I tend to get reflective about how difficult that part of my life was. Believe me when I say I get it. My whole life was this infection. Constant laundry, hours in the bathroom, out of control OCD, almost no sleep due to the anxiety.
Things that got me through (in no particular order)
I found a doctor who gave a damn. It was so cathartic when I found a derm who wasn’t just trying to rush me out. He listened, he encouraged me, he took his time considering best course of treatment. Psychologically that was a game changer.
I leaned into exercise. For the first time in my life I sought out a highly qualified therapist. She advised me to exercise, and not just light exercise. She suggested I really push myself as a way to deal with the anxiety, which was counterintuitive because I thought for sure the sweating would make me more paranoid about infection spread. But in fact the heavy exercise is one of the few things that quieted my racing mind. And it likely boosted my immune system.
I constantly reminded myself this was temporary. I spent a ton of time allowing myself to picture life AFTER the infection. Visualizing life MC-free gave me hope and distraction even when it felt like nothing more than fantasy.
I learned mindfulness. This seems counter to the last one, but when I didn’t have the luxury of visualizing and fantasizing about being cured, I learned to just put one foot in front of the other. Every task was completed step by step, just getting through the day moment by moment.
I stayed constant in the treatment. After trying what felt like everything else, we did cryo. That was probably around the 8-month mark, so it may have been just a coincidence that it seemed like that was the treatment that finally got the healing started. But I wish id tried it earlier.
I relied on communities like this one. Hearing other people’s stories and advice helped so much. No doubt I spent too much time these kinds of forums. It probably wasn’t always good for my mental health, but thank god for empathy.
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I know it’s hell, and I know it’s long and feels like forever, but remember that it is temporary. You WILL get your life back.