Gerard

How to handle life when you need help.
Accept it.
Because you know that when you can help others, you do.
So...here it is. And here we are.

I don't feel the need to share every single symptom or detail of what's going on with his illness, because I'm consistently met with the reaction of, "Well, he looks great to me!"
OK. He looks great. But what you don't see is this happening every day after school:


His fatigue level is such that the minute he sits in the car, he's flopped over in five minutes max. It happens at the dinner table (again), which is what happens when he's about to flare.
Why is this happening?
We don't know.
He has a hematoma on his cheek because he fell out of his bed on Monday night. (He didn't want to wake me up)... My kid!
Which is why we need to get to the Mayo Clinic to figure this thing out. Yes, I realize he looks great to everyone. Yes, that is the stigma of a "hidden" disease. What don't you see? You don't see the internal bleeding. You don't see that he asked me tonight, "Mommy, who's that in the picture with my friend Vanessa?" It was actually a  picture of him a couple of years ago...
You don't see this...

This is not the upper body of a healthy child, no? At one point, it was not uncommon for me to listen to him counting his bones in the bathtub. He would say, "Mommy, I can count all my bones." How prophetic.

And so, because I love my boy, I've allowed some friends to rally behind me and do this as a gift to us:

Go Fund Me Page:
https://www.gofundme.com/helpforgerard

If you would like to help, but don't do online donations, or you have a business, we have an account set up at Golden West Credit Union in Ogden under the account #0002397230 under Michael and Rebecca Hernandez with the Memo: Gerard's Medical and Mayo Clinic.
Snail Mail:
Golden West Credit Union
P.O. Box 1111
Ogden, UT 84402-9961
https://www.gwcu.org/contact

They take cash or checks, or if you have an account with them, you can directly transfer funds online to avoid service fees. The Go Fund Me accounts roughly take 7%, which I think is a bargain, considering the mountains of medical bills that charge far more in interest with or without a payment plan.

To all of you who have messaged me or called or sent sweet messages on FB, thank you. There will never be enough thank yous. No child should have to worry the way G has this past year. I'll be sharing a letter he wrote to his dad last night tomorrow. It's the sweetest thing I've ever read. And it's good advice. So there's something to look forward to.

We will also be hosting a yard sale and bake sales this summer, so look for those. And please share! Through this process we may be able to help other parents who are dealing with similar diseases, in similar classes of diseases, and I fully intend to start a support group for parents with chronically sick kids when we get back and get this thing under control. There's no reason we should all have to drive to IMC in Midvale to get support from one another. A girlfriend and I thought we needed a girls "napping" club, and I'm all for that! :-)

If you're young (talking to you under-30's and 40's), and working full time, just tak note of this. Listen to what your parents told you... Save at least 10% of your paycheck and tithe another 10%. You might hate the thought of skipping that night out. But one day you will need it. And you will be so grateful you have it. Trust me, I never thought that day would come so soon for us. We should be saving for retirement, not spending our retirement! And that's after a church shooting (another story) and a house fire (another tragedy)! And we are grateful now to have lived a frugal lifestyle, buying a house we could afford to live on one paycheck, in the fields of education and self-employment, and many others in-between. We drive old cars that we paid cash for and we don't have cable, boats or pets. But we do own our home and we do love our neighbors. And that's something.

Good night lovelies! And understand that this is super difficult for me to share. It's so much more fun sharing all the good, happy stuff everyone likes to see.