I happen to be a single parent of two children. We went through a very difficult divorce and have had many bumps in the road, but nothing prepared me for what was ahead. I always have been the person that seems to have strange things happen, I buy a nice car and it happens to be a lemon, buy a brand new dishwasher and it happens to be a lemon, so having "bad luck" was just a norm for me. Yes, it is no fun to seem to have bad luck, but you still have to find the silver lining and being who I am, I seem to be able to do that. The silver lining for me has generally been in the form of helping others. I have experiences that have led me to where I am so that I can help others. The problem is, sometimes the lemons we are given are not understood in other peoples eyes and can be embarrassing to actually admit out loud and very difficult to go through especially when you're alone and sick.
Make lemonade or make a fruit basket...
Where to begin...My son has always had a hyper-sensitive personality, whatever he was feeling was always amplified. We call him Bruce Banner. When he was happy, he was so happy and when he was angry, he was...well, for lack of better terms, he was The Hulk. We have been to countless doctors in his short 13 years, we have heard all the ADHD, ODD Mood Disorder NOS (alphabet soup) and all the many doctors have tried him on so many medications. He has been hospitalized several times since he was 7 years old. About 2 years ago it came to an all time worse for my son. I have given up everything in my life to take care of him. I quit working, living on nothing is very hard, I quit dating, I didn't go anywhere and couldn't be more than 5 minutes from the school in case of an emergency.This was far from easy and is far from easy to openly discuss my very bi-polar child. It is socially acceptable to have an autistic child, a hyper active child, a child with special needs is never an easy thing but people are open and receptive to those disabilities. When you tell someone your child is bi-polar you get "the look" that people automatically almost fear your child, It is a difficult thing. We do what we need to so he can be taken care of, he finally has an amazing mental health care provider who has him on some serious bi-polar medications and we have made diet modifications that help tremendously as well. We keep him on a strictly gluten free diet which is crucial for his mental health and because if he consumes gluten, not only does he Hulk out, but he has terrible stomach pain, diarrhea, headaches and vomits for days. Mental Illness is a hard thing to discuss and very misunderstood. It is real, people with mental illness are still people and the medical treatment for them is not good. You have to fight for your child or loved one with a mental health issue and you cannot stop!
Make lemonade or squeeze them in someone's eyes...
My daughter is a sweet pea, a love bug and a..."Lyma-bean". She has had several health problems in the past few years. She had the most unusual and extremely painful growing pains I have ever seen (and she is not a tall girl, barely 5 foot), she started having horrible chest pain, unable to breathe, fevers that lasted weeks and just so many things that seemed to be wrong. The general doctor had no clue, the cardiologist had no clue and the pulmonologist was just plain clueless! This year she started having more strange symptoms, her earlobe hurt into her face, a week long headache, her fatigue was worsening everyday and pretty soon she had joint pain. Every single joint in her body hurt to the point she almost couldn't walk. Seeing your 14 year old daughter in so much pain was unbearable. Of course my first thought is to cut gluten from her diet, which didn't help at all. My brother mentioned he thought it sounded like Lyme Disease. Sure enough, POSITIVE for Lyme. The treatments began and they are brutal, it turns out most doctors don't treat it properly and it is difficult to find one who will. My poor Lyma-bean has been so sick for her freshman year in high school. She has missed out on so much, she has episodes where she cannot even walk, she is in so much pain all of the time. Lyme Disease is often misdiagnosed for years and not treated thoroughly. It is also an illness that requires an uphill battle for the proper treatment.
Make lemonade or a colon cleanse...
Now for my story! Like I said earlier, strange things happen to me. I have always had an irritable bowel. I figured certain things were too rich, somethings just tore me to shreds and doesn't everyone look 7 months pregnant when they have bad gas? Little did I know that I basically had a sleeping volcano that occasionally erupted and it was my small intestines! I never really gave too much thought to all the intestinal issues and why would I ever think that my frequent migraines, irregular periods, my body covered in bruises I had no memory of injuring, my space cadet brain, my skin that was having major blemishes, a grand mal seizure, shingles at the age of 35 would be connected to my small intestines??? Well, it was and it pretty much was sucking the life out of me! I had the seizure that ripped my shoulder out of place so severely that is shredded the cartilage, required surgery, put me in an immobilizer and threw my career as a hairstylist down the toilet. Within a few years and many health issues later I became so sick. I first thought i was hit with the stomach flu for the 9th time in a few months, but then I couldn't get better. I became bed bound for weeks at a time, unable to walk I actually had to crawl to the bathroom. Just when I thought I was starting to get better and I could get out of the house, boom, I was sick again. I went to the doctor time and time again, had to go for IV fluids, had an ultra sound done to check my gall bladder. I was finally sent to a Gastroenterologist who did a biopsy of my small intestines and discovered I had a raging case of Celiac Disease that was causing my raging diarrhea and all my other issues. I had to cut all gluten out of my diet, which was not easy seeing how I lived off of cereal and spaghetti! It was a major change. Celiac Disease is another highly misdiagnosed disease. It is an auto-immune disease and pushing for testing and diet education is crucial.
Time for green lemonade!!!
What do all of these things have to do with green ribbons or anything green? Well, I had been thinking about coming forward with a blog about the difficulties my family faces, but I was having a difficult time with actually telling people our true story until I discovered something quite interesting. I knew the awareness ribbon color for Celiac Disease was green, then my daughter discovered the ribbon color for Lyme Disease was green as well and the other night when I was really feeling compelled to tell our story I happened to look up the ribbon color for mental illness and wouldn't you know...the color was green. That was my sign and I knew my untied front of a family had not only a story to be told, but we have society that needs to be educated. People need to know about all three of these issues and we were given these, not a as lemons, but as gifts of silver linings to teach others about! We have turned lemons into green lemonade and we have become, The Green Ribbon Family!
A lot of people have many opinions about mental illness and other medical conditions, do you think these illnesses would make your family stronger or do you think you would feel like you are losing your mind?
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