Sorry to my sister Jenni but I stole her title to this blog! My sister has cardiomyopothy. Not sure if I spelled that correctly or not but I am going to go with it. She was diagnosed a year after her twins were born almost four year ago. To look at her outwardly you can't really tell that she is sick but inside her poor heart is "broken." In other words it doesn't pump like it should. She has had to start taking a lot of different meds that have left her depressed and extremely tired. Now she is on complete disability and can no longer work and even has a handicapped sticker in her mini van. She relayed to me the other day that as she parked in a handicapped spot at Wal-Mart and then got her three kids out of the car she overheard someone say "Why is she parked in a handicapped spot, maybe she is just driving her grandmother's car and is too lazy to park in a regular spot for someone who really needs it."
Well, in my opinion that is harsh! They don't know my sister or what she is going through. They can't even begin to understand her difficulties and how she has to sometimes drag herself out of bed in the morning because her chest hurts and she is so tired she just wants to sleep but she knows that she has three wonderful children that depend on her and a husband that needs her. Why are people so mean sometimes? Why do they have to be hateful and judgmental when they do not have the first clue as to what they are saying about someone they don't even know.
I know that with my health issues it has not always been easy to convince people that I have been sick. When Cody and I first got married, the abdominal hernia I had was not too bad but it hurt and so we attempted to have in surgically fixed and when that went bad I went from not too bad to almost dead in less than two years. And still people told my husband or I would over hear someone say "well she doesn't look sick, I think she is just making it up so she doesn't have to do something or she is just trying to get attention." I even had a doctor tell me after I had six open and draining wounds on my abdomen, "well, yeah they need to be fixed but the infection in them won't kill you, so why don't you loose some more weight and come back and we will talk later."
Let me tell you how hard it is to loose weight when you hurt so bad some days you can't drag yourself out of bed or you are so depressed that even your puppy dog just wants to lay next to you and let you pet him and you don't even want to do that.
A year after that doctor visit I went to TN to visit with my family and my Mom took one look at me and immediately wanted me to go to the ER because I really and truly looked like death warmed over. The doctor that saved my life that year said that I would have not made it much longer and was glad that I had come in because I would have been dead by Christmas.
So three surgeries later and two more trips into ICU I finally feel just a little better. I have more energy now than I have had in a couple of years but I am still not out of the woods yet. I still have an open wound on my abdomen and although it looks to be healing with my track record we can never be sure.
Granted I have had enough prayers and emotional support from my family and friends but it is sometimes hard to get out of bed each day because of what I have been through and I just want it to be over. I know my sister feels the same.
Unfortunately my health problems hopefully can be eventually overcome but hers will never be fixed. We pray everyday that her heart will grow stronger and that she will not have to have a pacemaker or heart transplant but those possibilities are always in the back of your mind and so we continue to pray and try and lift her and her spirit up!
So next time you are at the grocery store and see a young person (below the age of 60) park in a handicapped parking space and look pretty healthy don't make snide remarks or assume they are borrowing an older person's vehicle! They may have a heart condition or something that makes them hurt all day and cannot get around like everyone else!
Thank you for reading my blog and I hope that you have a blessed day and remember "A hug a day keeps the blues away!"
Well, in my opinion that is harsh! They don't know my sister or what she is going through. They can't even begin to understand her difficulties and how she has to sometimes drag herself out of bed in the morning because her chest hurts and she is so tired she just wants to sleep but she knows that she has three wonderful children that depend on her and a husband that needs her. Why are people so mean sometimes? Why do they have to be hateful and judgmental when they do not have the first clue as to what they are saying about someone they don't even know.
I know that with my health issues it has not always been easy to convince people that I have been sick. When Cody and I first got married, the abdominal hernia I had was not too bad but it hurt and so we attempted to have in surgically fixed and when that went bad I went from not too bad to almost dead in less than two years. And still people told my husband or I would over hear someone say "well she doesn't look sick, I think she is just making it up so she doesn't have to do something or she is just trying to get attention." I even had a doctor tell me after I had six open and draining wounds on my abdomen, "well, yeah they need to be fixed but the infection in them won't kill you, so why don't you loose some more weight and come back and we will talk later."
Let me tell you how hard it is to loose weight when you hurt so bad some days you can't drag yourself out of bed or you are so depressed that even your puppy dog just wants to lay next to you and let you pet him and you don't even want to do that.
A year after that doctor visit I went to TN to visit with my family and my Mom took one look at me and immediately wanted me to go to the ER because I really and truly looked like death warmed over. The doctor that saved my life that year said that I would have not made it much longer and was glad that I had come in because I would have been dead by Christmas.
So three surgeries later and two more trips into ICU I finally feel just a little better. I have more energy now than I have had in a couple of years but I am still not out of the woods yet. I still have an open wound on my abdomen and although it looks to be healing with my track record we can never be sure.
Granted I have had enough prayers and emotional support from my family and friends but it is sometimes hard to get out of bed each day because of what I have been through and I just want it to be over. I know my sister feels the same.
Unfortunately my health problems hopefully can be eventually overcome but hers will never be fixed. We pray everyday that her heart will grow stronger and that she will not have to have a pacemaker or heart transplant but those possibilities are always in the back of your mind and so we continue to pray and try and lift her and her spirit up!
So next time you are at the grocery store and see a young person (below the age of 60) park in a handicapped parking space and look pretty healthy don't make snide remarks or assume they are borrowing an older person's vehicle! They may have a heart condition or something that makes them hurt all day and cannot get around like everyone else!
Thank you for reading my blog and I hope that you have a blessed day and remember "A hug a day keeps the blues away!"
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