Awareness Day!

Strange.  Yesterday as I was driving into town I thought of a bunch of things that I wanted to blog about.  Today, when I have time, I can't remember what any of them were.  My brain feels tired.  Maybe it's because I waited to go buy groceries until today (Sunday) which as a rule, I normally don't do.  Especially if I have to go to Wal-mart, which thankfully I didn't have to endure today.   I hate Wal-mart.  My brain seriously feels like mush when I leave that place.  I've often commented that I think I am actually dumber when I leave the place, and the amount of time that the dumbness lasts is directly related to how long I have to spend wandering around that store.  At any rate, even if my other ideas have gone missing, there is something that I want to share with you all.  Today is National Sarcoidosis Awareness Day.

Near as I can tell there are two days per year set aside for Sarcoidosis awareness.  Today is one of them, and there is another that is recognized on October 4.  I have no idea how there became two days of awareness, but the more the merrier.  http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=19901

I would like to take this opportunity to remind my friends and family members of how important it is to continue talking about Sarcoidosis.  Increasing awareness about the disease is our best hope of helping the world understand it, and perhaps to push the medical universe to continue pushing forward to  learn more about it and one day find a cure. 

If you pray, please lift us up to your God and asks that everyone suffering with Sarcoidosis be strong enough to look for the blessings that they do have in their lives.  This disease can cause so much despair, stress, pain, anguish and loss and sometimes it becomes very difficult to see past those things.  Some days it's all I can do to go through the motions of a normal day, but I do it because for me, the alternative is to give in to the disease.  I will never give in.  I will never give up.

  I have been blessed with a very strong will to fight, and a very strong belief that even with this insane disease in my body I still have more blessings than not in my life.  But I know that some of my Sarkie friends have such a hard time getting past the pain.  They have lost jobs due to days of work missed. They have lost husbands and wives who couldn't live with a sick partner.  They have lost friends who didn't understand how they could be so ill when "they don't look sick".  They have lost self esteem as their medications have morphed their bodies into something they barely recognize when looking in the mirror.  They have lost hope because their doctors don't know how to help them.  They have lost their insurance because they no longer have a job.  They have lost so much... not the least of which is a shred of hope to hang on to, and a sliver of dignity to sustain them.  Please pray that they might somehow see through the dark, lonely reality of their disease and find something to hang on to.  Please pray that they can somehow find a way to see that there really are blessings in despair.  There's really nothing more that we can do for each other sometimes, and I do know that there is power in prayer.  I believe very strongly in the strength of the human spirit, and I know that sometimes that strength can be found in the most simple of things that life has to offer.  It is my prayer that for those who need it, something simple will give them a reason to hold on and the will to fight.

Thank you to those of my friends and family who have taken the time to educate themselves a little more about Sarcoidosis. The more we learn the more we can help each other even if it's only the ability to offer a bit of understanding.