Talking about life's ugly things...

I started this blog for my quilting but it has become the place where I want to keep my thoughts for my son. After covering my Rheumatoid Arthritis the next subject that no one likes to face is death. I feel like I need to explain my wishes so in the future my son is not judged as a cold person. He will be doing exactly what I have asked.

I've mentioned in my profile that I have liver disease. I have to go back to 1979 to explain this. After having huge children I needed bladder surgery, something that is not uncommon for women to have. My surgery didn't go to well when the doctor cut into a vein and I almost bled to death. I was given 2 units of blood after the surgery. Years would past before I had to look back on that time. Back then I was living in Philadelphia and remember seeing signs put up by the redcross offering $10.00 if you gave blood. I remember laughing with friends about it, saying we knew who would be collecting the money...street people.  Back then, blood was not screened. It wasn't screened until 1992. 

Moving ahead to 2002 when I had the first signs of RA, one of the questions asked was if I had ever had a blood transfusion. Before giving you any of the strong drugs for RA, first they give you a blood test for any liver problems. Unfortunately, my test came back with a positive for Hep C.  I knew that was bad but I didn't really understand what the disease was. It wasn't long before I realized that the transfusion in 1979 was actually a death sentence. Many people walk around with this disease for 20 or 30 years not knowing they were infected with it from a past transfusion. By that time you usually have liver damage. I want to blame it on the FDA, but what's the use of blaming anyone when nothing can be done, it's just too late.

This is a dirty disease. Besides people who got it unknowly from a transfusion, a big part of the Hep C population is druggies. The very people I would never have in my life, those I looked down on..the dirty bunch of awful human's....I was now one of them. I still have a hard time dealing with this. How careful I was all my life, doing the healthy things, being the good, nice person. How could this dirty disease get into my blood. I've had no choice but to face it head on, live with it, be sick from it but I'll never get use to it.

My son Dave has not let me down one day. He has seen me through some pretty awful times the past few years. Shortly after we arrived in Texas I took a down hill slide. I thought after going to Pittsburgh last December I would feel better, but it only lasted a short time. Again I am hopeful that my next visit to Pittsburgh this month will make good changes but that might not happen.

When you feel this sick if you have any concern for the person with the responsibility of carrying out your wishes, this is the time to do it. If I told Dave I want to be buried back in Philadelphia with my son, he would make sure that happened. I don't want that. Going back to the Hep C, I have felt dirty from the second I knew what it was. I have told Dave to have an undertaker cremate me and he is NOT to take home my ashes. It just goes through me to think of this disease and know he would have to do something with my ashes. I know burning would clean away the disease, but to me, it just turns my stomach. Whatever they do with left over ashes is fine with me.

I know there will be people who say he is cold and should not do that to his mother. It's my wishes and it's written here for anyone who doubts that. He knows the second I die my soul will go to heaven and this is just a body it lived in, a dirty body with a horrible disease. He can have his own words with God, he doesn't need an audience to do that.

No I'm not ready to die yet. I hope this next round of drugs will make me feel better. But it's pretty clear today that I'm getting worse and now was the time to add this to my blog for him, for those who may want to judge him for my other son's who I've not talked about this with.