Monday, January 9, 2012

Fastest Girl or Best Sport - which award would you rather get?

Best Sport. That's my answer.

I was at a function the other night and the awards were being handed out for fastest male and fastest female in a fun ski race, then came the Best Sport award.... I thought about that after, and figured that this is the award I'd like to have for the race of 'life'. Why? For a couple of reasons. To be the fastest male or female depends on having a collection of qualities and attributes, some of which are beyond one's control, whereas being the best sport is totally and completely within anyone's reach and is completely dependent on how you approach and perceive life. So it doesn't matter what your situation, what your physical shape, what your health condition, 'Best Sport' is within your reach, which is why I think that this is the award to get and the award to strive for. We can all be best sports and imagine what kind of awesome place this planet would be if we all worked on being the best sport. Besides, when you get fastest male or female, you might be going too fast to notice what amazing things life has to offer during the journey, and you definitely wont have enough time to stop and smell the roses, or see the beauty of each individual snowflake. So kudos Dan. May we all be the Best Sport just like you.

My shoes got their innogural wearing on
the day of my RTX infussion. Raging Baby.
Today I had another drip drip drip moment (moments - seven hours worth of moments). You know what, even some nurses don't get it. I asked one if most of the people in there are in because of autoimmune diseases and her reply was that no, all kinds of doctors send people for infusions... nephrologists, respirologist, neurologists.... But then I asked a few people around me what they were in for and everyone I spoke with had an autoimmune disease of some sort and were sent there by different doctors. Then  I spoke with a wonderful lady beside me who had MS and another disease that was way too long for me to remember the name but it was basically a distal neropathy (both AI diseses) and we started speaking and I gave her all of my babble that has made me so passionate about my new adventure and after a pause (we were both getting RTX so we were both there for a loooong time side by each) she looked at me and said - "I've never thought of it this way, you have a very good point". That's the thing, we don't think about the effect AI disease has on our society, and how many of us there really are out there, and how closely we're all related, and how few people really get how AI diseases work and how they affect our medical system as a whole. We are standing on the edge. We need to get together and push for a cure, rather than just treating our symptoms and making us weaker in the long run because of a myriad of nasty drugs we have to take for the rest of our lives to keep us alive.

More cool stuff to come. Like really really really cool stuff. Stuff so cool that I might actually get to meet some of you in person in the not too distant future. How's that for a cliff hanger?

Now I go to bed and rest while my B-cells are the victims of genocide. Tomorrow a toilet bowl will be a mass grave of the innocent bystanders who have been confused by another drug intended to make me stronger (H1N1 vaccine). Peace out friends.

1 comment:

  1. You do amaze me, Marta, which is kinda amusing, when you think about it: Here you are, tied to a drip all day long, then, when all the other good sports would be all too glad to take the rest of the night (and probably the rest of the week) off, there you are, knocking off a long post! Huh. Of course I agree with all your points, though it is interesting that the nurses answered in a goofy way, essentially misunderstanding what autoimmune diseases are. Nephrologists, pulmonologists, and nephrologists, neurologists, not to mention many other specialties, deal with autoimmune diseases all the time, and send their patients to get RTX infusions regularly, specifically to deal with autoimmune diseases. In fact, there is no other real use for rituxan. Nevertheless, it is my hope also that just killing cells will soon seem utterly barbaric.

    Now rest, dear friend. You have a long, long way to go.

    Al

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