Uh. Oh. (A Plea For Help!!!!)

Holy. Crap. That's all I can say. I woke up yesterday to over 200 comments and they flooded in every minute after that! I've never gotten so many compliments in my life! Thank you SOOO much! I can't believe that I'm still getting so many wonderful visitors! *squeeeel!* Yay SITS!

I don't mean to start off on a sad note, but I really wanted to tell you guys this, and see what we can do to help.

My little brother and I found out that my mom had Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis when we were much younger - but she never really let us see the effects the disease had until more recently. Our whole life she was always the perfect mom - cooking the best food ever, cleaning up after us, teaching us amazing lessons, and really being a great friend. We lived below poverty level the majority of my childhood, sometimes even living in homeless shelters and campgrounds - but my mom would always make it an adventure for us. Even after her divorce from my dad when I was 12, she always stayed positive, upbeat, and managed to keep us none the wiser as to her struggles. I credit her for making my parents divorce probably the least traumatizing divorce in history. I was always just glad to have two Christmases! I was also just glad that she was happy.

So anyway, just a year or so ago, we found out that she also has an inoperable tumor right between the two hemispheres of her brain about the size of a peanut M&M, along with brain hemorrhaging. If the tumor becomes cancerous and grows any larger, it will pinch off the vein running between the two hemispheres (the one you can sometimes see in your forehead) and kill her. As it stands, she's at risk of seizures and strokes already.

The Lupus took it's toll, leaving quarter size bald spots all over her scalp. Thankfully, her hair is so long and beautiful that no one can really see them. Lupus is a disease that makes it so your immune system assumes healthy tissue and organs are "the enemy" and attacks your own body as if it were attacking an illness. In order to control this disease, she must go to the hospital every month and get an infusion for two hours. This lowers her white blood cell count, obviously making her susceptible to any little infection, cut, or scrape.

The RA is slowly degenerating much of her joints and bones. The vertebrate in her neck have degenerated so much she needs steroid injections every six months. So far she's had 12 surgeries on her wrist alone, 9 of which were major. She's also had three surgeries on her foot to remove bone growths. The healing time on all these surgeries takes four to five times longer, and are much more painful, than on most other people because of her infusions she needs to help calm the hyperactive immune system (Lupus.) Having these diseases hand in hand is horrible as treating one symptom often makes another much worse, creating almost every ailment from the flu to infections on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, these horrible diseases aren't even the worst or most painful things she's had to go through in the past few years. The doctor found a mass on her rib cage, and had her undergo what she described as the most "painful surgery" she's ever had, removing her entire rib. More recently she had to get her entire thyroid removed because of a mass of nodules that formed on it, leaving a scar on her throat.

Rarely does she get a full nights sleep due to the constant pain she's in all day. She wakes up every morning and is barely able to move. She wears braces on her wrists and takes over 10 prescriptions per day to control not only the pain, but all the symptoms that go along with the diseases.

But of course, Mom being the way she is, wouldn't want me to talk about all that. She's one of those rare strong people that never talk about their disease, or complain about pain. She's always up and at 'em as soon as she physically can be - cooking, baking, doing crafts, making quilts, staining furniture - she always stays active even if it means going to through a little extra pain to get that last stitch in on the quilt that she's been working on for months to give to someone for Christmas. There isn't a holiday that goes by where Bradley and I don't get a perfectly thought out package with tons of home made crafts, baked goods, and personalized cards. She takes food to the neighbors all the time, as she loves to cook, but can rarely eat much. She'll also send "just because" cards with goodies inside just to tell someone she's thinking about them. When the holidays roll around and everyone is all together, she's the life of the party - joking, talking, and having fun. Although recently that time has been constrained more and more as she gets tired easily. She's an absolute perfectionist. From her cooking, to her decor, to her home - everything has it's place and coordinates beautifully. She's thrifty and never shops anywhere but places like Savers and the Goodwill where she manages to find the cutest, classiest, clothes for just a few bucks a piece. She's also an absolute champion at Scrabble and Sudoku - always beating my grandma and I like three fold! She has amazing style, grace, intelligence, and does it all on a strict budget, with all these illnesses, but now - NO CAR!

Which is the problem. Awhile back her car was totaled by no fault of her own, and she was never able to afford to get a new one. She's has heavily relied on my grandma for transportation, who now has to move back home nearly 15 hours away. Mom has around three to five appointments PER WEEK! (Insane, I know.) Plus her two to three hour infusions, surgeries, etc... Being as stubborn as she is, she'd never ask any of her friends or neighbors to help due to the length of the visits taking up the majority of the day.

So, here's what I'm doing. For anyone who orders blog design, 100% of the funds will go to help my mom buy a CAR! Normally, I don't require payment upfront - but if you could pay for your blog design in full when we put your name on the waiting list, the pool will grow more quickly. Anyone who is currently on the waiting list can also contribute by paying upfront. The PayPal form is by donation, so you may enter in your own amount. Just send me an e-mail letting me know what you want, I'll give you a quote and an estimated time frame for delivery, then you use the "Pay Here" Button on the far right sidebar under the queue to pay via PayPal.

As an incentive, I will randomly give away a $75 gift card to one lucky person who donates! You will also get an "I Donated" button when you're done!

If you aren't able to donate or get a blog design, no worries! If you could just put this lovely button on your blog I would be sooo grateful!

<a href="http://www.aprilshowersblogdesign.com/2009/02/uh-oh-plea-for-help.html"> <center><img src="http://i432.photobucket.com/albums/qq48/aprildurham23/Helpmom.gif" /></center></a>

Thanks for all your support and help. Even if you don't donate, I'd love to hear a comment from you to share with her, or just words of encouragement! If you want to, please share this story, or any part of it, with your blog followers as well. Hopefully we can raise enough to get her the money she needs for transportation!

Love you guys! You are totally awesome!