Posts

Showing posts from December, 2021

A Mother Feels Her Children's Pain

    How does a mother face the fact that she has unknowingly passed a chronic condition on to her child? I've been asking myself that for some time now. I have guilt because my children are my heart. I would do anything to protect my children. Yet I have no doubt that at least two of my children have spine problems just like me. It weighs on me daily. Let me share a bit about my sons.    My oldest son is 26 years old. He started complaining of back pain at a young age, approximately 7 or 8 years old. I wasn't diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis at that time. I believed my spine issues were all scoliosis related. We went through years of taking him from one specialist to another. He would cry from the back pain. I remembered when I was young crying with my back pain also. It was heartbreaking. I feared he would need a back brace like I wore through my teenage years for scoliosis. However, he only had a slight curvature in his spine, not enough to need bracing. I did...

Christmas Without Her 2021

  I hope your Christmas this year was spent with those you love most. It certainly has been different from past Christmas for us. I'm sure many are experiencing "first" kinds of holidays this year.  Christmas 2020 was spent quarantining from extended family members. Due to my immune system being weakened from my Ankylosing Spondylitis medications, we felt safer by only celebrating with immediate family members. Looking back I wish we could've found a way to do a social distant celebration. Since December is very chilly in our area we didn't have the option of an outdoor event, but maybe we should've made a bigger effort.   As bad as 2020 covid cases were in our area, we hadn't seen the surge that the rest of our country was dealing with until 2021. Sadly, as 2021 proceeded we saw friends losing multiple family members. Our hospitals were over capacity and started turning people away. Friends and family members who work in the medical field were exhausted a...