Chronically Sager

Welcome everyone! For anyone who doesn't already know us, we are the Sagers and this is our life. My name is Courtney. That's me there in the middle left. I've been married to that handsome guy on the bottom, Eric, for almost 15 years and we have two insanely great kids. Ali is 14 and Dylan is 12, seen there in the middle, and obviously everywhere else! My very best friend on the planet, Stacey, also lives with us. She's up there top center. She's been in our lives for over a decade and has become family in every sense of the word. On the middle right there you'll see the coolest pitbull in town, Athena Furbutt Sager, and the sour patch of the family, our Shepard Pit mix, Isaballa Maria Antonia Martina Sombra Sager Perez. (It's a long story) Every person in that picture, save the dogs, has some sort of chronic illness and or disability. Some of the illnesses are genetic and therefore the same, some are co-morbidities of each other. Some belong to only one of us. Some to all except Stace. Some are old and well controlled. Some are new and we're just learning the ropes. Over the last year our life has taken a turn for the insane. The kids went from healthy active normal kids to being very sick over the course of just a few months. It started with Ali, then Dylan followed about 6 months later.

Our lives went from looking like this...

To looking like this...

...in a fairly short amount of time.  Ali went from hours and hours at gymnastics to hours and hours hooked up to an IV pump. Dylan went from singing on stage to having trouble standing upright.  I lost all my hair. We live at doctors offices. Dylan has physical therapy once a week, and we are at least 1 specialist appointment a month, but usually more. That does not include Eric's appointments because I truly cannot keep up with his schedule! I know he sees at least 1 specialist a month as well. Thank goodness for insurance!

Our house looks like a pharmacy, with pill boxes and bottles and dividers everywhere, cabinets with IV supplies and random blood pressure cuffs and pulse oxes just lying around wherever. There is a gatorade/powerade/propel/water bottle within 2 feet of everyone at all times. We eat salt plain, well, some of us do, and wear compression socks/sleeves on our legs. Well, some of us do.

Some days are good days, and some not so great. Sometimes we all feel awful at the same time, and sometimes it's just one of us. We've gotten really good at taking care of each other. Sometimes it all feels like too much, but on most days we are just glad we have each other.

I was going to write one post about all of us and our illnesses and interests, etc, but it got WAY too long. I decided instead that I would write a separate post for each of us! I'll post one or two a day for the next few days and you can get to know all about us! Thanks so much for stopping by!