(You may want to stop reading here if you do not want to be shaken to your core and be made very upset.  Okay, you have been warned.) 

People always say that I have got to be more positive, more optimistic.  Well friends, I tell them that I am not pessimistic, I am REALISTIC.  These past few weeks I have come the closest I have ever felt to dying.  Two weeks ago I was having a fever every day, freezing, sweating, nauseous.  I had wounds that were not healing, that would bleed profusely by me absent-mindedly scratching a mosquito bite.  The pain was off the charts, the medicine for it, a joke.  Two weeks ago, when my fever was running and I could not get out of bed or barely speak, I swear I felt God next to me.  “Do you really want to die?  Well here is what it feels like.  Be careful what you wish for.  Death is not the peaceful, calm you think, at least getting there sure isn’t”.

I was crying.  I thought of Grant and Tyler and my cat.  I thought about the things I enjoy, just for ME, writing this blog, my voiceover work, my book club, Twitter, Google+, and then I realized…life is fun.  Not just with Tyler.  There are fun things in MY life.  There are still books to read and places to go and candles to be lit and beautiful but cheap things to have. Money is coming.  I WILL travel.  I will take Tyler to Disney World one day.  And then I said to God, “Stop!  Stop!  I don’t need to see this any more.  I don’t want to die.  I thought I did but I DON’T.  I want to live, not just for Tyler but for ME, God please let me live, I still have living to do!”

And then, it was either God the steroids or both, I got better.  Not better like I am trying out for the Olympic team but…my fever went away.  My mouth sores were gone.  My wounds healed.  I bought that “Imagination” candle I had been thinking about from the Disney Store and the Alice in Wonderland Vinylmation and my surprise “Buy one get one free” Vinylmation “Pete” from the Mickey Mouse Club House show.  And all three things are with me right now, bringing me joy.

Last Tuesday, I went to the hospital again.  I had horrific abdominal pain, with all of the symptoms of an appendicitis.  Unfortunately whenever I go to the hospital I am such a complex patient that they often do not want to treat me.  They gave me an ultrasound on my stomach and then up my…well let’s just say I could have had a career in pornography, I took it like a champ.  There was a lot of waiting, a lot of blood-letting and peeing in cups.

Throughout this my feet were swelling, like they have never swelled before.  They were purple and red, as if I had not been walking on them, as if they were starting to clot.  They looked like….like the way my father’s looked as he lay dying.  Like the feet of death.  The only feet I had seen looked like that were my father’s.  All discolored, painful.  I kept asking if they would examine my feet, if they would treat my pain, but they didn’t want to do much until they figured out what was wrong with me.  Alone, in a private emergency room, I started to pray, I started to beg and cry.  “Dear God, Jesus and Daddy.  I have a little boy that I have to make it for.  You can take me, but please, not now, not until he is a teenager and he no longer needs his Mommy.  That’s all I want!”  People on Face Book were praying for me, people on Twitter and Google+ were praying and I thank them very much.

And suddenly, I was getting better.  My feet cleared up.  My diagnosis was spastic colon or a possible flare-up of my Ulcerative Colitis.  That was a lot better than, “You need surgery on your BLANK or your BLANK.”  They had been almost positive I was going to be needing surgery of some kind!

And then I was discharged.  And Grant and Tyler came to the hospital to take me home.

So, where was I going with this, what the Hell does this have to do with BlogHer’12?  Well, the truth is I am being REALISTIC when I say I may not be there…or here.  How lucky can I get?  When God wants me, he wants me, I can only continue to pray that I live to finish out being Tyler’s “Mommy”.

Really, where will ANY of us be in 2012 anyway?  Any one of us could get into a car accident tomorrow.  Our plane might crash, we could get breast cancer.

Yes, any one of us.  But for people like me, with Lupus and other serious, worsening chronic conditions, we REALLY have to ask ourselves, where will I BE?  Will I even be here to make it to an event that for three years now has been so unobtainable?  When I have the money for next year’s BlogHer…will I really…be here?

The post BlogHer Conference 2012: Looking Ahead and Wondering first appeared on Mama Sick.

On Sunday, my mother, who was visiting, Tyler and I went to a mall.  We had to walk from one end of the mall to the other.  My leg hurts! Tyler complained.  I didnt think much of it, I really thought he just wanted to go home because he was bored.

Yesterday morning when he got up, he called to me, Mommy, my leg hurts, I cant walk!  Of course I was frightened.  I asked him where the pain was and he pointed to his groin area.  He asked for a juice box and as usual I said, You can get that, Tyler.

No, mommy, I cant because I cant walk, I told you!

Now I was scared.  Grant, like a dummy, I thought, held a piece of chocolate out to Tyler and made him walk over to get it, as if he were some sort of a dog!  Tyler limped over to get it.  At this point I was calling the pediatric emergency triage line.  They suggested bringing him in to an appointment.  Due to Tyler being a boy, you did not want to fool around with the testicles and penis.

After examining him, the pediatrician found the pain was more local to his left hip.  The doctor felt that this was due to a post-viral complication that some children get, and that Tyler had temporary arthritis in his hip!  He told us that if it was still happening by Friday that he needed to be brought back in for some testing.  I did not want to know what the testing was.

Due to Tylers Tourettes, OCD, Anxiety, and Sensory Processing Disorder, going to the doctor is like torture for him, much more than the usual child.  I was pleased to see that he did his best ever!  When Tyler is sick we give him a Well Prize.  He knew exactly what he wanted and wanted to go to the Disney Store to pick up his Spider-Man action figure.  The mall that has a Disney Store nearest to us is about 40 minutes away.  But I had promised.

So my mother, Tyler and I piled in to the car and went off.  We had to rent one of those fire engine cars that you take your child around in.  It was either that or a wheelchair, and I did not want him to be scared.  He had a blast in the fire engine and loved getting his prize.

Until it was time to go to the bathroom.  I wanted to get a man to carry my son to the family bathroom, but he insisted on walking and when he did I just about died.  My little boy, limping like Tiny Tim, bravely walking to the bathroom.  Everyone starring at my crippled little boy.  I got sick thinking about it.

What if he was going to end up like me?  What if he has just gotten Auto Immune Disease from a virus, the same way it is theorized that I did?  What if he has that propensity within him, that makes him vulnerable to the same things I have?  

Of all of the things that I have suffered through this week and a half, two trips to the emergency room, a fire in my kitchen with Grant being burned, my mother and I being stung, this was by far the worst thing of all, seeing a glimpse of what every chronically ill mother fears; their child suffering like she does!

Today was a better day for Tyler, so I am praying that the worst is over.  And that nothing like this rears its ugly head again in Tylers life, so full of promise.

Mom and I at the Disney Store, with Tyler seated in his fire engine, holding on to his Spider-Man villain for dear life!

The post Tuesdays With Tyler: Future Shock first appeared on Mama Sick.