Posted by Elaine (24.88.63.97) on October 23, 1999 at 17:45:54:
Hi. My name is Elaine. I suffer from chronic clusters – I have had them for
19 years. When I have a cluster, the whole family works together to ease my
pain. One makes coffee, one gets ice, one gets my pills and imitrex, one
grabs the oxygen and then they all run and hide. Its’ wonderful to have
their support when I’m in pain.
Now when I am not in pain, its a normal family, Just the other day, Heather
told Deveny off because she lost a pair of Heather’s earrings. Deveny jumped
back and the next thing I knew Heather called Deveny a F&&%$ idiot and
Deveny called her a sorry %$#*&. They yelled a while at each other, then my
son jumps in and tells them they are both idiots! Boy, did he mess up -
they both jumped him! I turned the radio up and started dinner. Then Heather
comes upstairs and tells me all about what Deveny and Adair did to her. I
cook and shake my head up and down a lot. Then Heather leaves. Then Deveny
comes in and tells me all about what Heather and Adair did. I cook and shake
my head up and down some more and she leaves. Then here comes Adair. He
tells me all about what the girls did to him. I again shake my head up and
down and then he leaves. Now at supper, they all sit at the table not
talking to each other except to loudly ask each other to pass the salt. Buddy
and I talk and watch. We all help clean up after supper, so I turn the radio
on and we sing and dance around the kitchen and start joking and guess what?
They are friends again. They love each other.
Sometimes after one of their fights they cry then make up. That’s a
wonderful sight to me. They learned from the fight and most of the time it
made them closer to each other. I use to interfere and tell them no
fighting, but learned it was best to just watch and let them work it out.
Now if someone comes into our house and attacks one of us, they have to
fight us all because we love each other and are family.
Now, religion. I believe in God. My husband is
not sure what he believes. I am a Baptist. Heather took up her grandfather’s
faith - she is Catholic. Deveny is a Methodist - she took up my brother’s
faith. Adair is not sure yet. I never pushed my faith on my children and
neither did my husband. We felt they should choose for themselves when they
became old enough. I am proud to say they each chose what makes them happy.
They do respect what I believe, and I respect what they believe. Its’ really
cool! We don't push our religion on each other.
We even have a member of the family who is rude, mean, and very self
-centered. She leads a life that we don't agree with. She is my oldest
daughter. She felt a need to leave us behind. But we still love her and she
is welcome here anytime. We are there for her if she needs us - because we
are a family.
This is how I see clusterheadaches.com - a family with lots of
love, hurt feeling, different religions, different opinions, and fights, and
so much pain. But when all is said and done, we are there for each other.
Family what a wonderful thing!
But some say what about Heather’s post? I wish Heather had not posted the
other day, but I love her for it too. What this person has done to my family
was not done on the board, it was done on the phone. I do not believe this
person is a member of our cluster family. I believe it to be a visitor, who
has been asked to leave by us all and what they did was against the law. I
have forgiven this person and so has Heather. Heather did right - she came
to the family for help! That’s what families are for. This is the way I look
at family. I am sure others look at it a different way and that’s okay also.
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!