Monday, May 23, 2005

More of My Life With Arachnoiditis

One thing I can say about having this disease is that it has given me the opportunity to meet people that I would have not had the opportunity to otherwise meet. It has given me a new Mom that I dearly love, a companion to share my life with, and a whole group a friends around the world who offer me an endless supply of love and support daily. So, as hard as this disease is to endure, in a lot of ways, I have to be thankful for it, because otherwise I would not have met these wonderful people or had them become a part of my life.
I would also not have had the opportunity recently to go to Washingto, DC as a representative of our group, ARACH_FRIENDS, to attend the National Spinal Cord Association Summit on Spinal Cord Injury/Diseases, along with my living companion, Nancy. We were in Washington for 4 days and had the time of our lives. Our nations capitol is a place that I never dreamed that I would ever see and I am thrilled that I have had that opportunity. I am also extremely happy that we were able to speak out about this awful disease to all different kinds of people. We talked to doctors, professional people, people with SCI's, care takers, CEO's and other industry leaders. It was an awesome experience for both of us and I am so very proud of the work we accomplished. We may not have gotten the exposure for Arachnoiditis that we had hoped for, but we are definitly on our way, and that is more than we had hoped for.
So, to repeat myself from the beginning of this post, as hard as it is to live daily with this disease, I am thankful for it. It has afforded me many opportunities that I would not otherwise have had and for that I am truly blessed.

1 comment:

opforsoldier said...

My dealing with arachnoiditis has been interesting as well. It has shown me who my true friends are as well as let me know who are those that I can no longer trust. Sadly there are some that fall in to the later category and that is too bad, at least for them.