Lyme disease cured my caffeine addiction

Had a real bastard of a headache the other day in Hemköp. So bad I had to leave the store and go chill outside, away from the bright fluorescent lights. Almost migraine territory.

Earlier that day I'd had one more coffee than usual to try to chase away a weird stubborn tiredness. Naturally I blamed the coffee for the headache. This was seriously some headache! It had been bad enough that I immediately decided to quit coffee cold turkey.

For the next five or six days I soldiered through what I thought were caffeine withdrawal symptoms. Started to get suspicious on about day five when it seemed to be getting worse instead of better.

On day six of "caffeine withdrawal" a mild irritation I'd been ignoring on the back of my right calf was suddenly not so mild any more. Upon inspection I found a cool red bullseye pattern rash there. Wow, badass!

Ten minutes later I figured "Probably better Google that, actually". And Google said "That's Lyme disease, softshite”. Within 24 hours of that I was collecting a prescription for antibiotics.

Lyme disease is worth avoiding. One star. Brain fog is serious shit. While I was in the waiting room at the doctors I had to really concentrate just to remember where else I'd been that day.

Brain fog does pick up some points for tricking me into quitting coffee though. Even after just two weeks clean I already felt better than I have in years. Definitely keeping that.

Reminds me of my old Red Bull addiction in that respect. In the depths of the sleep-deprived baby years I got mega addicted to that stuff. Like three or four cans a day addicted.

Then in January 2023 the remote policy that my job depended seemed to go up in smoke. They’d hired me in Malmö, but now I had to work in Stockholm, they said. It was upsetting. I'd wake up every morning to such an immediate surge of anxious adrenaline that I didn’t need the Red Bull any more. I was clean forever, cold turkey, in the space of a week.

Have to say, out of the two, I’d take the Lyme disease any day. Antibiotics are lot easier than gathering evidence for a potential 8 § MBL lawsuit and I doubt I’ll have recurring nightmares about ticks the way I do about that RTO attempt.

Now that I’ve run out of stimulant addictions I’m excited to see what other aspect of my lifestyle will be accidentally upgraded by my next mishap. Crossing my fingers for accidentally becoming vegan as a result of my bike being stolen.

In the meantime, I'd rather not revisit either of these experiences. So I've improved my habits around checking for ticks after being out in the woods. And upon hearing about some Unionen clubs in the gamedev sector sending a joint motion to Unionen about defending remote work, I gladly volunteered to help them set up a bit of a web presence around the initiative.

So do go and check out remoteworks.se! And maybe consider signing the petition too. Even if you're in the same situation as I'm in right now, where your current employer has great union collaboration and remote work isn't under immediate threat, it can be worth adding your voice to this out of pure solidarity for others whose circumstances are more precarious. And I can certainly tell you from experience that you never really know how stable your own situation is until it isn't any more!