Jeeesuuus Christ! What the hell was that! In my four years
of ALS, I have never felt this bad. Wait, nevermind, yes I have. I forgot about
my disastrous diaphragm pacer surgery that left me with eight weeks of pain
resulting in a slight addiction to oxycodone and a good dose of suicidal
thoughts. So, being sick for two weeks, doesn’t look so bad in hindsight. But
let me tell you, this was a rough two weeks. This monster called ALS was
winning. But today is the first day that I felt like I might be the victorious
one. So, I’m pretty sure I deserve some sort of reward, medal, key to the city,
a prize, or something! I guess I could consider my life my reward because I am…
Still here… After a respiratory illness in the fifth year of ALS. Gracie came
over yesterday and looked at me like, “You’re still here?”
I will get back to regular blogging tomorrow and yes, the
winner of the Christmas tree contest! But, today some thank you’s are in order.
Let’s start with all of you… If I could hug each and every one of you and thank each and every one of you for all of your love
and all of your prayers I would. Pat yourselves on the back because your
prayers worked. Sometimes I watch the news and see so much evil in the world
but I remind myself that there are people like all of you praying for a girl in
Paris that you have never met. You all have touched my heart and restored my
faith in humanity. So, a million thank you’s and a million hugs. I will be
schlepping my sick little ass over to my favorite church this weekend and I
will light a candle for each and every one of you.
I also have to tell all of you that I read all of your
emails and all of your comments. I cannot respond to everyone but I want you to
know that each message of love reached me.
There is someone else I need to thank… A very special
person. I call her Linda, but her real name is Debbie. Why do I call her Linda?
Click HERE. Have you ever had the feeling that nothing in life is by chance.
That there is a reason for everything. That God or whoever you pray to, puts
people in your life for a reason? That person for me is Debbie. A year ago, I
was sitting at a café in Paris and I noticed a woman was sitting next to me
writing in her journal…in English. (Yes, I looked.) I don’t know who spoke to
whom first but within three minutes I knew we would be friends forever. Here we
were, two American girls sitting at a café in Paris who happen to be from the
same hometown of Missouri. Debbie went to college in Springfield, Missouri
where I grew up and where my entire family is from. Debbie is from St. Louis
where I lived when Gracie was young. It was as if Debbie was my long lost sister.
We have the same accent, we laugh at the same things, we eat the same food, we
raise our children the same, and we both just get each other. Debbie was in
Paris watching over her 16-year-old daughter as her daughter was going on
casting calls for her modeling career. I just decided to start going with
Debbie to wait for her daughter with her. You really get to know somebody at a
Parisian café in the freezing cold over 14 glasses of red wine. Over the past
year, Debbie would always return to Paris with her daughter and we would always
get together. How could I not? She was officially family. So, it was no
surprise when Debbie showed up at my door last week because she knew I was
sick.
Let me be clear, David and I are not at our best when I am
sick. I panic and then David panics and then we both start screaming at each
other. There’s a lot of fuck you’s going on at this household in times of
stress. Don’t get me wrong, David is the best person you want by your side when
you are sick but you also want to rip his fucking head off. And now, Debbie has
seen this whole show and surprisingly she neither called social services or the
police and I think we are still friends. It takes a real friend to go through
your worst moments of life with you and that’s exactly what last week was. You
know how at the movies when someone is choking at a restaurant and they are
gasping for breath and someone comes a long and does the Heimlich? Well, that’s
how my week was, sometimes 4 to 5 times a day. Yesterday, it happened at least
10 times. I would start to choke, David would grab my cough assist machine and
Debbie would be on her knees with a tissue wiping my mouth. Gross. Five minutes
of complete terror would occur, my coughing would subside, then life would
return to normal. Then, one hour later the whole episode would restart. Debbie
was by my side for every moment. That’s actually an understatement. Debbie
never left my side even for a second. She would stay with me even if I were
sleeping. She never once left the apartment…for nine days. Debbie showed up
with matching leopard pajamas for us, crawled in my bed, and got me through
this. How did she get me through this? Mainly with love but mostly through
laughter. I have just spent the last nine days fearing for my life and laughing
hysterically. I wish all of you could have a friend like Debbie. I am one lucky
girl. Hold on, Debbie gets more impressive. Not only is she gorgeous obviously,
but now you know that she is funny and a wonderful caregiver and a true friend
but… Here’s the thing… Debbie did all of this while suffering through her own
illness. Debbie has MS. You would never know it this week. Debbie pushed her MS
aside so that she could help her girlfriend with ALS. I know that Debbie was
suffering with her MS but she never told me and she never let me see it. I’m
pretty sure she deserves a key to the city as well.
Debbie and I have watched YouTube, watched The Real
Housewives, caught up on our social media, watched the past four years of
Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, watched every video that Cher has ever done,
watched Dr. Zhivago for the first time, and played Crack Trivia sometimes until
1 o’clock in the morning. We ordered take-out, Debbie made homemade chicken
noodle soup and we ate four packages of Nestlé’s Tollhouse chocolate chip
cookies. I could not have asked for anything better. Debbie anticipated
everything I needed including my crazy pills. She took a few herself… This was
an extraordinary week so don’t judge.
She also put up with and understood David which is no easy
feat. David would scream at both of us for whatever reason and then he would go
to the kitchen and make us an apple tart. Every. Single. Day. Debbie would just
tell David to shut up and then enjoy a slice of apple tart and three glasses
of wine. We laughed, we cried, we gossiped, we solved all the world’s problems
and we got through this. So, Debbie, with all of my heart and all of my soul
thank you for being my friend. I knew there was a reason God put us together at
that Parisian café. You are an angel in disguise.
So, hopefully I can put this respiratory illness behind me
and look forward towards Christmas. I am so excited to share the winner of the
Christmas tree contest with you tomorrow. In the meantime, check out my
Pinterest board HERE that I have put together titled Have Some Decorum
Christmas Good Ideas. I think is rather good, if I do say so myself. Thank you
all again for all of your support. I cherish all of you… minus a couple of you psychopaths. I have manners so I won’t name names. But on the whole, I love all of
you. Now, please take all of your prayers that were directed at me and direct
them towards all of the innocent Pakistani schoolchildren that were murdered today by
the Taliban. Please pray for their souls and their families and please pray for
the retarded people who kill in the name of religion including that idiot in
Australia yesterday.
*Something you don’t know about me? I am a fabulous roller
skater. When I lived in Missouri, my mother would drop my sister and me and our
best friends, Leslie and Emily, off at the rollerskating rink every weekend for
hours. It was called Skate Port. We would order nachos with fake dripping
cheese, Dr Pepper and my favorite sweet and sour candies and skate and skate
and skate. We wore Jordache jeans and feathered our hair and roller skated to
the soundtrack of Grease. I’m pretty sure I even had a few birthday parties at
this place. I loved it. My parents wouldn’t even stay… They would just drop us
off and pick us up at the end of the day. I would never do that in this day and
age with Gracie. I would be too scared some creep like Terry Richardson would
kidnap her. Creeps like that always hang out at rollerskating rinks. That’s it
for today. I hope everyone’s having a happy holiday.
