9.19.2007

bob gets serious.

someone close to bob has ms. multiple sclerosis. a real bastard of a disease. with no known cause and no cure, it's here for the long haul. you might know someone who has it too.

the cliff notes version of ms: something is causing the coating around the nerves to be compromised. this leads to a disruption of the signal from brain to (fill in the blank, could be anywhere). sometimes this comes and goes, other times an attack starts and never stops. the results are ms symptoms. the list can be long or short, common ones include numbness, vision problems, muscle weakness, and fatigue. it could really be anything that your nerves control - think bladder control, phantom pain, swallowing - anything.

sometimes ms is invisible to the outside. with relapsing/remitting you can get lucky and go years without symptoms. but is that really lucky? is wondering all of the time if something is 'the next attack' really a good thing? is crying because your eye is twitching, knowing it signals the drop of the other shoe lucky? are medicines to slow the progression of ms really all that good - when the side effects reduce your quality of life?

bob doesn't think so. ms sucks.

for this reason, bob is giving a great big shout out to a bunch of lovely ladies who are organizing a new year's eve fundraiser for the national multiple sclerosis society. these ladies have ms. they hate ms. they want to find a cure for ms. let's help them.

www.apartyandapurpose.com (a party and a purpose dot com)

if you are in the dc area, attend. if not, donate. if unable to donate, spread the word.

in the contact area for the event site it says: "together we can move mountains".

bob on, my mountain moving friends, bob on.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree, i have MS and consider not even taking the poison that is supposed to "slow dwn progression, makes me sicker, and my quality of life,NOW is what matters to me...I will take that risk than to be sicker all the time.

bob said...

mad ox. first, sincere apologies for the delinquent reply. and second, there really do need to be alternatives (other than 30% reduction in relapse rate with a huge side effect trade off).

ooooh, i might have to break out the soap box again....

bob on, my friend, bob on!