Blessed

I got pregnant and married at a very young age, to my high school sweetheart.  By the time I was 24 I had my two kids, was very happy, never regretted a thing and was living/loving life. You know the old saying "everything happens for a reason"? Well now I know.  By the time I was 31 (2002) I got sick literally over night and never got better, a few years later I was told I had lupus and started taking some powerful medications, after that I knew I would not be able have any more children, not only would I have to stop taking some of the medication up to 6 months prior to getting pregnant which would make me flare I would also have to stop all of my other medication used to treat lupus which would also throw me into a flare, just the thought of this scared me to death. Not to mention the thought of having another miscarriage also frightened me as I already had two.

Now I am 40 years old and a lot of my friends have young children and here I am with older children almost out of the house, close to having grandchildren but if I would have waited or if I wouldn't have gotten pregnant when I did I may never had the chance because of Lupus. I have several friends that are in this very situation right now and I feel so bad for them and at the same time I am feeling very thankful and blessed. Even though getting married and having children  young was hard financially I would not change a thing, I love them with all my heart and soul. 

Grieving....

How long do you grieve your old life? I've been diagnosed for 7 years and I am still going through the grieving process. :( This cannot be normal. I have always been such an active person, as a teenager I loved to be in the sun, water, outside, skating, riding my bicycle, walking through the woods, anything but being inside doing nothing. As a young mother, I worked a full-time job, took care of my kids, took them to their doctor's and dentist appointments, took them to their extracurricular activities, did the grocery shopping, did all of the cleaning and chores around the house, I hardly ever sat still and now that's all I seem to do. I see what all of my friends are doing and I wish my life was different. My kids are older and almost out of the house, what am I going to do when it's just me and my husband?  This should be the prime of our lives, we should be able to travel, etc but I just don't know if that will happen. All I can do is pray this disease gets under control or goes into remission and I get some of my life back. I am tired of watching it pass me by, there are so many things I could be doing, so many things I have missed out on, therefore my kids missed out on. But I know there are things we have done that we have learned to appreciate a little more. We have all learned not to take things for granted and to appreciate the little things in life. We have spent more time as a family and Hope and I have spent a lot of time in the car to and from TKD. That has been our thing, sometimes afterward we go out for a treat, those are memories I hope stick with her for life. 

We must make the most of the life that has been given to us, things could always be worse, I need to remember that more often.

May is Lupus awareness month

this is what I take to survive and function

Can't let lupus win.......

May is Lupus awareness month and now more than ever do we need to raise awareness. My friends are flaring, lupus is attacking them in bad ways, many have died over the last year or so. We need better medications or a cure for this disease. This disease not only attacks our bodies but steals our joy, our happiness, and puts us in a dark place and leaves us there and we don't know how to get out. We then wonder if it's worth fighting for, we ask ourselves what do we do for society, for our family? How can we contribute when we're in the bed and can barely take care of ourselves? We ask ourselves what do we give to the relationship to our spouse, our children and our friends? It's not a nice place to be and I hope each of us can rise up and stand up to this monster called lupus, we can't let it win, we are stronger than that, we can do this..... Together.