(Also, for whatever reason, my formatting in this post is a mess.  I have emailed a friend to help me fix it, but I beg you, please stick with it, or at least come back later when it is fixed.  I really wanted to put this up and if you read on you will see why.  Thank you.)

Lately I have been feeling what I usually refer to as Less Than My Usual Level of Crap as I honestly never can say I am having a good day. Theres either Crap or Less Than Crap.  First off, I have had some stubborn bug bites that despite treatments of antibiotic, anti-itch creams and bandages, have refused to heal for a couple of weeks now and they look so bad that I have made an appointment to get them checked out by my Primary Physician on Monday.  And they happen to be on a very embarrassing spot on my body, my, uh, tush.  As I do spend a good part of the day bed-bound, be it from being unwell or just plain being on the computer half the day, the paranoia in me is fearing bed sores, of course.  But when you have Lupus, it can make your body do some whacked-out things with something as simple as a bug bite.

To add to that, for the past two days I have been having some sort of low-grade infection, coughing up stuff, having a sore throat and a low-grade fever. More achy than usual and feeling hung over when I awake, or more hung over, I should say.

I have been wanting to put up a post and pictures of Tyler’s wonderful graduation but have just been feeling too sick and now so gloomy, post-ceremony and post-celebration, to do the occasion justice.

As I had written above, today was an interesting day with a lot of meaningful ups and downs worth a post of its own. Tyler and I had been out and about doing chores.  School ended the day he graduated, Wednesday; camp will start on Monday.  Again, a post worth all its own.

When I came home I collapsed into bed, around 4:00, and had set my alarm for 6:00 p.m.  Tyler knocked on my door at around 5:30.  Mommy, wake up! I got up, I had to go to the bathroom anyway.  I felt like I hadn’t slept in days.  Honey, let Mommy sleep for another half an hour.  She will get up when this television show is over.

When the alarm rang, I got up for good.  I felt so awful.  Freezing from the fever, in pain, shaky and exhausted.  What I didn’t know and realized only now was that Grant had fallen asleep too.  Usually we make it a point to have one of us up with Tyler, like in shifts, and if this ever happens, we have instructed Tyler to wake Daddy up, to even jump on him if he needs to, but for some reason he didn’t wake Grant up.  He wanted ME and he was hopping mad that I had slept for two hours.

Tyler started asking me for stuff, to play, to watch t.v., to get him a snack, even though I would be making dinner soon. He was yelling.  I told him the first thing I needed to do was to make myself a cup of coffee.  I needed to rest on the couch for like 15 to 20 minutes and then I told him I would be making dinner.  Please do not think that we do not feed the child, he gets plenty of meals and snacks.

I started making the coffee.  I was feeling so awful, the worst in a long time.  I was feeling guilty too, even though Tyler and I had had a nice day together.

Mommy, I hate you!

Normally I don’t let what Tyler says bother me, but I was feeling so vulnerable.  I hated me too.

I don’t want to live with you any more!  I want to be with Marks parents!

Oh you do, do you? I started to shake and I felt tears forming.

I don’t like you!

For the first time ever, I lost it, with my child, my four-and-a-half-year-old child, who can go from I Hate You to Youre The Best Mommy In The World in a matter of 60 seconds.  Whose mind changes like the wind.  I started to cry. Probably the worst thing you could let your child see you do, probably damaging him forever.  He had the power, he had to have been scared to see me crack.  But he kept on.

Dont talk to me!  I don’t want to talk to you any more!

At this point this physically, mentally ill mom, who is always in pain started to really cry.  And then Tyler realized what he had done. The Child had become the Adult and realized how much he had hurt his mother.  He started to calm down but still wasnt exactly ready to admit that he was wrong.

I don’t like you, but I still love you.

And then the Sick Mommy began to turn back into Adult Mommy.  That’s okay.  You know how we always talk about how a lot of times you can not like what the person is doing , but you still love them anyway?  Like I might get mad at something you did, but I will always love you.

We hugged.  And a few minutes later Tyler became the Good Child and said, I’m sorry mommy, I love you.

I love you too, honey.

And we both felt better.

The end.  Or lamentably, just the beginning.  The beginning of a lot of arguments where Tyler will blame me for screwing up his whole life; for not being able to take him to Disney World, for not being able to buy him his own computer.  For being embarrassed to have friends over.  For having to work while his friends are out having a good time.  For not being able to help him buy a car. For being so poor.   All will be blamed on my illness which had led me to become so poor.

But starting at just four-and-a-half-years-old?  I knew it was coming, I just didn’t know it would happen so soon.  And now I wait…for the next time.

The post Resentment: What Ive Feared the Most is Already Happening first appeared on Mama Sick.

My mother is here visiting until tomorrow and we both attended Tyler’s school for the annual Mother’s Day “Muffins With Mom”.  We were the first to arrive to Tyler’s class and one of his teachers asked if either my mother or I would read a book to the class and the moms.  My mother had always wanted to be a children’s librarian so she gamely stepped up to read the book Love You Forever. If you know this book, you are thinking “oh no!”, if you do not, as I did not, you are thinking you are going to hear a beautiful story about the love between a mother and her son…which it was, until the mother DIES!  My mother was reading it and crying.  I was hysterical since it is my mother up there reading it and I have a disease that can be fatal, and most of the other moms were crying too. The kids didn’t understand why we were crying.

I was so pissed!  Who’s brilliant idea was that horrific book?!  I could think of a hundred others more appropriate! Still, the kids sang and signed a song for us and we did have some nice muffins, and Tyler had made sweet cards for my mother and I, plus a gift for me, which you can see in the picture below:

Was this before or after I bawled my eyes out?

On Saturday, my mother and I took Tyler to a Mothers’/Kids’ Day at one of our local farms. When I woke up my lips were swollen, chapped and stinging.  It seems that the lip gloss I wore to the Mother’s Day program to “glam” myself up a little had caused an allergic reaction.  Thank you, Lupus!  (I am still reacting to it four days later.)

Mom, Tyler and I, before the back-breakingly rough hay ride starts.

As part of the “festivities”, there was to be a sheep-shearing demonstration.  I had heard many people say sheep-shearing is abusive, but I wanted to see for myself, and they were doing it in front of the kids, so how bad could it be?  I think my view of sheep-shearing now that I have witnessed one could be another post entirely.  Let’s just say that when I saw the 8 inch gaping wound on the sheep I said, “Okay!  Tyler, why don’t you go ride the ponies now?”

Tyler also rode a tricycle around an obstacle course made of hay.  At four-and-a-half-years of age, I am becoming concerned, because Tyler still does have a bit of trouble pedaling and steering, but again, perhaps another post.  It was even harder with him crashing into the hay. My mother and I took turns helping Tyler steer and pushing him along.

Tyler really starts cruising now!

At this point, if you know me at all, you may be thinking, “Why Emily, aren’t you overdoing it a bit?”  Except Mama wasn’t thinking about that then.

Sunday dawned.  I got up before everyone to go to the bathroom and I screamed in pain.  My right elbow felt like I had broken it and my left didn’t feel too much better.  I could not open my non-child proof cap pain medicine (which I keep locked in a safe), nor my already opened bottle water.  I had to wake Grant up and then everyone got up.  Not much of a Mother’s Day for me, nothing from Grant, as I had asked him not to buy me anything, since we cannot afford it, including cards.  But besides the gift and card Tyler had given me on Friday, Grant told me Tyler had another present for me that he was very excited about. He came up to me and said, “Mommy, I want you to have this book.”  It was his own book, Gallop, that Grant had bought Tyler a couple of years ago from a museum.  Tyler had picked it out for me and told Grant that he had wanted to give it to me.

Tyler was following our lead.  Since Grant and I are so poor, if we give our loved ones gifts, it is usually a “re-gift”, something nice that we had when things were much better for us.  I thought it was so sweet that Tyler knew that he did not have any money either, so he had picked out one of his own things to give to me.

But as I said, I did have this horrendous elbow pain that I had never felt before.  I’m thinking, “Lupus, osteoporosis…I need to have this checked out.”  I knew it was from helping Tyler on the tricycle at the farm.  I called up one of those immediate care places.  There I was on Mother’s Day with my mother at the doctor’s office.  I was taken in quickly and diagnosed pretty quickly as well.  Lateral Epicondylitis, or the more common term, Tennis Elbow in both of my elbows.  One usually gets this from repetitive motion but because of my other diseases, I didn’t need much repeating.  The doctor said I had to be careful not to bend my elbows at a 90-degree angle or more, no lifting, pulling or pushing…and no computer!  You see how I am listening to that one?

My mother and I went to the pharmacy.  It was 12:30 and my brother and his wife are coming at 1:00 for Mother’s Day and my brother’s birthday.  Grant called me and told me that Tyler was sleeping in our living room.  What?!  He never naps this early!  My mother, brother, his wife and I all got to my apartment at the same time.  Tyler of course was still in his pajamas, I had not showered.  Grant tried to move Tyler to my bedroom but he woke up and now he was a complete grouch.  He hated everyone, and told them so.

My brother, his wife and my mother went to pick up food we had ordered from an Italian restaurant.  It was a lot of stuff and some of it was in a box on a chair in the kitchen.  Tyler walked by and by accident knocked the food onto the floor.  My dinner and my sister-in-law’s dinner are laying on the floor!  My head was spinning.  My mother and I looked at each other, and started just putting the dinners back on the plate.  I will probably get some rare infection from this.

Tyler got cheerier after eating his spaghetti with meat sauce and having birthday cake! Everyone decided to go for a walk, play mini-football and go to the playground.  Everyone except Grant and I, who got into bed, and slept.

So, no pictures of the actual Mother’s Day as I never showered and got back into my pajamas.

Like I said, the good, the bad and the ugly and at some points, the very sweet.

The post Tuesdays With Tyler: Mother’s Day Weekend: Chronic Illness Style! first appeared on Mama Sick.