When I’m Weak
Struggling with Grace Through Chronic Illness
October 13 2022, I woke up that Thursday morning with a sore throat that had rapidly gotten worse over the past few days. I gulped some Thieves Vitality tea and a feeling of broken glass ripped down my throat. This familiar feeling hadn’t been felt for nearly five years. Strep throat, it’s got to be. I had tried every natural remedy I knew to calm the pain, but it only got more severe.
I had recently returned home from a great family trip to Galveston, Texas, and just assumed this qualm came with the traveling territory, but little did I know this was only the beginning of what would become a challenging, upsetting journey for the next year.
I prayed and assessed the situation. I could no longer swallow my saliva, let alone talk. It was time to go to an urgent care clinic and see a professional.
The culprit was who I imagined, streptococcal pharyngitis. Not one to prefer the use of antibiotics for the sake of preserving my immune system and gut microbiome, I asked the urgent care physician to call my midwives ( I was still breastfeeding an almost one-year-old at this time) to inquire which anti-biotic would treat the infection with the lowest risk of gut disruption to the baby.
With pain medicine and a prescription in hand, I returned home to two kiddos sick with stomach bugs, to crash in bed and begin the healing process.
Barely three days later I was feeling myself again, thank you modern medicine! When desperately needed, it can be a blessing.
Life continued on. I began a new business with my husband, and I eased into life with a new schedule and responsibilities. You can imagine my complete surprise when two weeks later, I woke with a familiar scratching pain again. I shuffled to the bathroom and opened my mouth wide in the mirror. White spots again? Surely this can’t be.
I called the urgent care back and asked what this could mean. Recurrent strep, most likely, was there response. Round two of antibiotics, here we go.
With the first round, I ran out of my medicine early, having realized the pharmacy messed up my order, but I was too fatigued to switch it out. My infection had cleared up anyway, and I learned that you can actually stop anti-biotic treatment sooner than prescribed if the infection is gone, to help save more of your gut flora from being executed.
Perhaps this lower-spectrum dosage wasn’t strong enough. I accepted a higher dosage and tried again. Having had weight loss problems since having my third baby, I reached out to my nurse friend who was helping me with my nutrition to ask for an anti-biotics food protocol. I was not going to let my hard work go to waste!
I finished my dosage this time, and life went back to normal.
Two weeks later, the pain and white spots returned.
This can’t be normal. Now I started questioning things. Strep, back to back?
I know I have toddlers, but they aren’t so exposed to so many germs that I could possibly be experiencing this infection again!
Instead of returning to the urgent care, I booked a visit with my nurse practitioner. Little could have prepared us for what awaited us.
