Cancer is serious, very serious. In no way, shape or form am I attempting to take away from that fact.
However, what I would like to do is make it clearly known that there are serious conditions out there besides cancer... or besides heart problems, being paralyzed or other often heard of medical conditions.
One reason you know cancer is so serious is because you probably know someone with it. Unfortunately, it's fairly common, for lack of a better word there. Another reason you know cancer is so serious is because of all the funding it gets, which is a result of how common it is and how many people need to be helped. Lastly, another reason you know cancer is so serious is because sadly, people are killed by it.
With cancer, there is a beginning and there is an end. If you are diagnosed you know you will need some sort of treatment or surgery to try to get rid of the cancer. If you get rid of the cancer, you can be considered cancer-free and perhaps go back to living a pretty normal life. Or, it hits you fast and hard or treatment doesn't work. One way or the other, cancer comes to an end.
Like I said, cancer is serious, very serious, and in no way am I attempting to take away from that. However, I would like to bring about awareness that there are health conditions out there that are also very serious, just as serious, as cancer is. And even those that may not be seen as quite as serious, can be extremely disabling and life-long life-changing. Myasthenia Gravis is both. I'm going to focus on that condition only for right now.
Myasthenia Gravis is extremely serious. However, it is extremely rare. Because it is rare, there is not a lot of funding and you do not hear much of anything about it, until you know someone who has it. Even looking on the internet, often information you find is misleading, very misleading, stating you can lead a fairly normal life with treatment. Well, first of all, that treatment has to work and for many including myself, it doesn't. That treatment causes serious complications and side effects which lead to further treatment and it becomes a cycle. This cycle is life-long. There is no end in sight. Every single day is a struggle and at any point in time it can be life-ending. But it doesn't necessarily lead to an end, just a battle, an every single day battle.
Those with Myasthenia Gravis go in and out of the hospital. We get central lines placed through our neck/chest. We have blood filtered out of us and back in us with donor plasma. We sometimes get placed on bi-pap machines or worse, a ventilator. We have surgeries. We take medications daily. Those medications cause serious side effects which can include hair loss and loss of protection against illnesses. We have to be very cautious about where we go and who we are around because our bodies cannot fight off illnesses like a healthy person's body can. We sometimes use walkers or wheel chairs. Some days we can't get out of bed, find it hard to swallow, difficult to breathe, too hard to lift our arms to wash our hair, vision too blurry to drive or read.
The thing is all of those things happen on and off, again and again and again. There is no start and end and that's that. It continues. It gets slightly better then it gets worse. We are never "normal." It continues. We face this battle every single second of every single day... regardless of if you can see it, regardless of if you hear about it, regardless of how rare it is, regardless of how much funding we get.
Myasthenia Gravis is not a condition in which you gradually get better or are "healed." It is life-long. It does not end. Treatments may help, but they may not, and there is no cure.
There are some people who have had cancer and also have Myasthenia Gravis and have said that they would prefer to have cancer. I know that is one hard thing to hear and swallow, because we know how serious cancer is. But that shows how also serious Myasthenia Gravis is and how difficult it is to live with hearing that cancer would be preferred over it. Don't judge what you don't know or haven't personally experienced.
Whether you have or know someone with Myasthenia Gravis or cancer... or POTS/dysautonomia, a heart condition, someone who is paralyzed, or someone who just is having a hard time in life right now... let's all extend one another a bit of grace. We each face our own struggles. Some are visible and some are not. Some end and some don't. Let's be supportive, not competitive or judgmental. Let's love and be loved. And let's stay focused on God, not on any health condition or obstacle that comes our way.
God bless.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4
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