If..................

Tonight Tim and are watching a documentary on a specific rally car driver. He is sloshing in the mud and is just having so much fun! I have ridden in the race with Tim and loved every minute of it. One time we ended up on our side as we made our way through the course. Tim had told me before I got in the car that if we start to roll I am not to put my hands up and  better right before I got in. I didn't put my hands up but boy did I laugh! Oh, and I didn't pee myself, hehehehe!!! There wasn't a moment of fear, only excitement of moving fast! Buddy Dennis, you will know what I mean.Tonight I told Tim that if I could go back in time and IF I didn't have Lupus I would become the first girl rally car racer and I swore to him that I would be great! That is one of the only times I have ever mentioned if...........................

Such a simple word but such a turn it makes in your life when you say it..... if. If I had more money, if I finished school, if I started a family younger and IF I didn't have Lupus. If...........if..........if..........it makes me sad when I think about if's  not because what my life could have been but sad because I feel almost ashamed of saying it. You see I do not feel sorry for myself when it comes to being sick and having Lupus. I suck in that bottom lip, pull up my big girl pants and as Tim would say, "suck it up buttercup!" 

Lupus changed my life at such an early age. I was such a baby when the doctor told me. I was only 22 and at that age I don't think I could fully comprehend what was going on. I didn't know the toll it would take on my body and soul. I didn't know that the decisions I made then would affect how I feel today. I was not told that the chemo that makes my immune system at least a bit better would enable me to have children years down the road. I didn't know that pain medication could become addictive. I just didn't know. I was young, having fun and no one else around me was sick. So I went on and as years went by I understood my disease a little more at a time.

Today over 10 years have went by and I learn something new everyday about my body and how Lupus affects everything from my mind to my joints in my toes.......yes, my toes!!!!! I had no idea I even had those joints there!!!!! It has been a long road and sometimes a sad road but it is a road I would never have missed. My disease does not define me but it has made me who I am today. Life is hard, days can be long and nights can be excruciating but they are who I am and to love love me is to love me with Lupus.