The ignorance around chronic Lyme continues. I'm so tired of articles about the skepticism around Yolanda's lyme diagnosis. Read latest here.
When you have cancer or AIDS, people support you rather than question your health. When Pedro Zamora took part on The Real World, he was trying to raise awareness about HIV and nobody complained that he didn't "look sick" or "act sick." He was a young, vibrant-seeming man giving a human face to an ugly, terrible disease. A disease that took his life way too soon, and that many people ignored until they saw celebrities or reality stars dealing with it.
I have met so many people who have suffered exactly like Yolanda Hadid. Not one of us who has fought this fight has any doubt she is telling the truth about her sickness. WE HAVE FRICKING BEEN THERE!!! And we understand how hard it is to get the medical community and insurance companies to help us when the general population treats us like we have an imaginary illness. If they don't acknowledge it, there's no research. Without research there's no cure for millions of people currently infected and suffering.
This is why we need to show our faces -- healthy-looking faces -- and share our stories -- devastating and debilitating stories. So maybe, perhaps the ignorant masses will begin to understand how this disease is cruelly decimating lives. Hundreds of thousands of lives a year (300,000 according to the CDC)!!! While most sit back and ignore it, yet needlessly worry about getting Zika (a media-hyped illness that currently affects less than 2000 people a year).
The reason some of us talk about how sick we are is because we are trying to educate folks!!! JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T SEE OUR DISEASE doesn't mean we aren't in pain. We push through pain most days and can pull it together for a couple hours but that doesn't mean we aren't suffering.
It benefits us all if people take this epidemic seriously. It's in our backyards! Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of people are going to have to suffer (some will die) until the public opens their eyes and demand a cure.
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