Credit where Credit's due

There are plenty of times I don't get along with my mom, lots of times I don't agree with her, many times I make fun of her, and a few times when we didn't really talk to each other. But let's face it, my mom is a great person who has had a hard life, and I am so glad to talk and joke around with her. She is a really good mom to my two sisters and me! My mom has countless health issues, probably hasn't had a day in decades where she has felt 100%, and still manages to take good care of her family and think of others. Take a look at this list and you'll realize how awesome she is:

-She has had constant back pain since the birth of my little sister, 21 years now. She has a herniated disk and some other muscle problems back there and has tried countless solutions: chiropractors, surgeries, medication combinations, physical therapy, massages, acupunture-type stuff, and plenty more. And she is still in pain, still can't walk much more than a couple blocks unless she wants to be laid up the next day. There have been several times in my life where she's had to spend whole weeks at a time in bed, just from simple stuff like vacuuming too much.

-She is allergic to almost every medication there is. She has bad reactions to almost anything. Even cough syrup gives her gall stones (even though she's had her gallbladder removed!)

-She had constant headaches, almost every single day, with several migraines a month. And she just deals with it. I can't imagine having a headache every day of my life!

-Her body can't handle sugar...it gives her headaches, which turn into migraines. So she bakes special "honey cookies" and practices amazing self-control, especially during the holidays. Who doesn't want to eat Christmas cookies at Christmas?!?

-She stuggles off and on with depression and anxiety and has had her fair share of panic attacks.

-She had a really bad case of acid reflux, and cannot take a single one of the medicines the doctor prescribes because she has bad reactions to them. So she has had to eliminate even more foods from her diet!

-She had thyroid cancer my senior year of highschool and had to have her thyroid removed. The hospital gave her morphine, which it turned out she was allergic too, and she would just lay in the hospital bed crying out in pain. It takes awhile to figure of the correct dosage of thyroid hormone supplement a person needs to be on (it's different for everyone), so for weeks and months while they were trying to get it straight, my mom would lay curled up in a ball on the floor of our house just sobbing and have seizure-like attacks.

I would be a much grumpier person if I had to deal with even a couple of those things, yet my mom still manages to find moments of joy in life. She's going to the doctor tomorrow and tuesday to have some tests done because they just found evidence that the cancer might be back, so pray that she doesn't have side effects from the tests (she has side effects to everything), and that the results will come back clean. She is a good mom.