Everyone who has talked to me for more than five minutes, knows that I'm a passionate person. I always have been, and always will be.
I've been spending a lot of time thinking lately. I want to organize an autoimmune disease awareness walk.
The whole being a proactive person, and not doing anything really to help myself or others has been driving me crazy since my diganosis. I mean, there's things I do--go to doctor's, etc. that keeps me proactive in my health. But I soooo want to be able to do something on a larger scale to help out more people.
So here's what I'm thinkin'. Please feel free to tell me I am insane, need to check myself into a mental institution, or to just critque my ideas into something that will be more manageable. Also, if you would like to be on the planning committee for said crazy idea....lemme know. :-D
After much thought, instead of doing a Lupus awareness walk with the LFA (Lupus Foundation of America) I would prefer to do autoimmune diseases as a whole. Please see the following link for more details about the organization.
http://www.autoimmunewalk.org/aawalk/aboutwalk.asp?action=publish&mode=normal&cmsid=1464&varcontentname=AboutWalk
This is the first year they have ever done an Autoimmune Walk. I'd like to participate next year.
The idea is getting together at a track of some sorts, so people who have not lucked out as much as I have with their diseases will still be able to participate. At the completion of each lap they receive a link. On the link, they can either put a person's name who has a disease, or the disease itself.
They then will take that link and attach it to the "common link chain". At the closing ceremonies, we will hold that link up so that news people, journal writers, and quite frankly the WORLD can see how complicated Autoimmune Diseases are.
Right now, there is no "Autoimmune Disease" doctor. Instead, in order to reach a diagnosis many people are shuffled from one doctor to another in a desperate attempt to discover the reasoning for their sickness. Then once we FINALLY find out why we're in so much pain, we are told there is no cure. We are told we'll have to live a life of medication popping and chronic pain.
Autoimmune disease awareness needs to be blared from the loudest speakers, and shouted from rooftops. We need to raise awareness for something that affects more people than cancer! yet cancer is more heard of. Most people when you try to tell them about your illness, cock their head to one side and raise their eyebrows in confusion.
This needs to be done. Will you help?
