What I learned from losing my mom

The past few weeks, I have suffered through my first, and I pray, my LAST, root canal. For three weeks I have endured pain that has radiated down my throat and to my ear. I literally started to think that I had something horrible going on in my body, that was being brought to the surface, dressed like a bad root canal. And I go through this every time I don't feel good. Fortunately, it is very, very, rare, for me to get sick. But when I do, I get SICK! But I also get scared. And I am sure that 95% of my trepidation is caused by the fact that I lost my mom at a young age to what started out as a fall down the stairs, resulting in a sprained ankle. That sprained ankle, ended up being a result of the beginning stages of Lou Gehrig's disease. Also known as ALS. About a year and a half later, ALS took my mom, and obviously, shook my world to it's core. And it wasn't until I had my own children, that I realized just how horrible it must have been for my mom.


If you are not familiar with ALS, here's a little bit of information I copied from the ALSA website:

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.

A-myo-trophic comes from the Greek language. "A" means no or negative. "Myo" refers to muscle, and "Trophic" means nourishment–"No muscle nourishment." When a muscle has no nourishment, it "atrophies" or wastes away. "Lateral" identifies the areas in a person's spinal cord where portions of the nerve cells that signal and control the muscles are located. As this area degenerates it leads to scarring or hardening ("sclerosis") in the region.

As motor neurons degenerate, they can no longer send impulses to the muscle fibers that normally result in muscle movement. Early symptoms of ALS often include increasing muscle weakness, especially involving the arms and legs, speech, swallowing or breathing. When muscles no longer receive the messages from the motor neurons that they require to function, the muscles begin to atrophy (become smaller). Limbs begin to look "thinner" as muscle tissue atrophies.




So basically, my mom slowly lost all function of her body. When she could no longer breathe on her own, she had a tracheotomy. When she could no longer eat, she had a feeding tube. She insisted on being out of bed and in her wheelchair, sitting in the living room, even with all the work it took to get her there, when we got home from school. And it took me years to realize that she did all of this, because she was still our mom. And she was going to fight to stay alive as long as she could, because we were still her children.

So, anyone that really knows me, knows that my biggest fear in life is leaving this earth while my children are still young. I was 15, and my brother was 12 when our mom died. She was 41. In four years I will be 41. As that time gets closer, my paranoia grows. A stomach ache turns into Ebola. Headaches turn into possible aneurysms. Any ache or pain in my joints, is automatically ALS. And EVERYTHING is cancer!

Now, the logical side of me knows I am just being paranoid. But that scared and illogical side of me usually kicks the logical sides ass and then taunts me with the fact that all the unnecessary stress I'm causing myself, could kill me too!

So, I try my best to look on the positive side of things. I do believe that losing my mom young, in a way, has made me a better mom. I know how precious my time with my children is, and I know how quickly it can be cut short. So I tell them I love them 100 times a day. I really don't cry over spilled ANYTHING, because I know how lucky I am to be here to clean it up. I try to stress to them the importance of being compassionate and empathetic towards others, and brave for themselves. You see, I want my kids to have the things I didn't have growing up. But that has nothing to do with the material things I can give them. With the foundation I am giving them, someday they will be able to acquire things. I want my kids to have me. I want to be there when their hearts get broken, so I can comfort and help mend those hurts. I want to be there to reassure them that life does go on after falling on your face, after being humiliated, after being betrayed. I want to help them rebuild their faith in the world after it knocks them down and stomps the breath out of them. I want to be that person on the end of the line when they've been up with their own child all night, and are ready to have a complete breakdown. Yes, I definitely want my children to have what I didn't have. And like my own mom, I will do whatever I have to do to make that happen.

I finally get it, Mom. Thank you for my life. I wish you were here to live it with me physically, but I know your are, and always have been, right beside me. I just hope I am making you proud. I love you.  
Love, Your Daughter

Love, Kindness, Laughter, and Faith,

Meaghan