Lupus Walk Is a Big Step Forward For Anchor Brenda Blackmon & Her Daughter
WWOR/Ch. 9 anchor Brenda Blackmon and her daughter Kelly will be at the Alliance for Lupus Research fundraising walk this Sunday at the Jets’ training camp in Florham Park, N.J.
That they are doing anything together is miraculous. Two years ago this week, Kelly, 25, nearly died, her body ravaged by lupus.
Doctors told Blackmon what no parent wants to hear. “They said, she’s not going to make it,” Blackmon says. “It’s time for you to take her off the respirator.”
Kelly was – and still is – everything a parent could ask for: She was newly married, smart, a college grad on her way to a big career.
She’d been diagnosed in 1999 with lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that affects about 1.4 million Americans. She had a couple of bouts with the illness, but nothing like what hit in 2007.
Returning from a trip abroad, Blackmon got a message from her son-in-law, Alfonso Ray, that Kelly was in trouble.
“I got back and she was hospitalized in a coma,” Blackmon says. “Every system began to shut down.” Lupus does that. It can hit every major organ – heart, lungs, kidneys, even the brain.
“We were asked to make the decision. We were as close as you can get. We were told it was time to make it,” Blackmon says, her voice slowing.
“One thing I did,” she says, quietly, near tears. “I kind of made a deal with God, we all do that. I literally said, ‘Okay God, my life for hers.’ I did it. I meant it. And I think He knew I meant it. I said okay. Take me. He let us both live.”
Neither Blackmon nor her son-in-law asked to stop life support. Good thing. Kelly soon opened her eyes, though she was far from out of the woods. She spent 52 days in intensive care.
“When she was at her worst point, there were days I could not put one foot in front of the other,” she says. “One day you could have your child and one day she could die. I came to work most of the time, except for during the week she said she might not be around anymore.”
After leaving the ICU, Kelly spent several months in rehabilitation relearning the stuff most of us take for granted, like talking and walking.
Two years ago this weekend, mother and daughter were supposed to participate in their first Alliance for Lupus Research walk. They’ll make it this time, Sunday at 10 a.m. (check-in is at 9), leading a team of walkers representing a nonprofit Blackmon formed: The Kelly Fund for Lupus.
She realizes that while Kelly survived the big battle, lupus can strike again at any moment. Still, watching Kelly near death gave Blackmon a new perspective on everything.
“It made me look at life completely differently. When people talk about my job or whatever they’re going through, I think, I’ve seen worse. That was the worst possibility there is,” she says.
“With children, you learn love and unconditional love. To lose a child, you lose what you base hope on. The rest is not important.”
By: Richard Huff, TV Editor, Daily News
Date: June 5, 2009
Source: http://articles.nydailynews.com/2009-06-05/entertainment/17925586_1_alliance-for-lupus-research-intensive-walk