(no subject)
I don't do this often, but this one's really important to me. Please consider donating even a few dollars.
You might or might not know that my little sister has MS. She was diagnosed at sixteen. She spent much of the next several years on the decline, at one point losing half her vision, at other points just...falling over. She couldn't get out of bed for much of the rest of high school and they tried to take away all her high school credits because of absences due to her health problems. Her meds at that time were injections into muscle tissue several times a week, just to keep this thing at bay, and every few months she got to go get more MRIs so she could see from the scans how the MS was turning her brain into swiss cheese. This isn't widely known, but those meds, which are all that's available to most people with MS, also have a common side effect -- they make people taking them suicidal, just in case the shitty circumstances weren't depressing enough.
In recent years new meds have been made available from research funded by events like these. My sister now gets an IV medication once a month that has turned the progression of the disease completely around -- she has won national dance championships several times since being on them (and is, to my knowledge, the only person with MS to have done this). She has almost completed her nursing degree and is hoping to be a pediatric nurse. She is mobile, independent, and functioning. She can see, ride her bike for miles, and hold a job. She is no longer suicidally depressed.
But these aren't available to everyone. These meds cost $3000 a month, so they are not available if you don't have insurance, as many people with MS don't because they can't work. They are highly restricted to people who can get into certain studies. Money you donate doesn't just go to finding a drug that the lucky can take; it goes to finding better forms for these medications so a poor person with MS can buy a much less expensive and invasive pill instead of injections. It goes toward finding treatments for symptoms like extreme fatigue, joint pain, and muscle spasticity so a person with MS can work instead of being forced into a never-ending spiral of poverty and declining health. This isn't just about a cure that's twenty years away; it's about finding solutions now for people who are just trying to get by now.
If you can donate even five dollars, if you can forgo a Starbucks or a couple of cans of pop over the next couple of weeks, it would be so appreciated you can't even imagine. You can donate anonymously if you want, at this website.
If you are one of the many people who can't donate this year because the economy is so terrible, please consider making a phone call or writing a snail-mail letter to your senator or representative instead on issues that affect MS patients, particularly things like stem cell research, public funds providing access to healthcare for the poor and those with preexisting conditions, discrimination in schools and workplaces, accessibility in workplaces and on public transit, and even medical marijauna. These things are needed just as much as money, especially as funding gets slashed and fundamentalists with no understanding of scientific research try to block stem cell research.
Thank you for reading this!
You might or might not know that my little sister has MS. She was diagnosed at sixteen. She spent much of the next several years on the decline, at one point losing half her vision, at other points just...falling over. She couldn't get out of bed for much of the rest of high school and they tried to take away all her high school credits because of absences due to her health problems. Her meds at that time were injections into muscle tissue several times a week, just to keep this thing at bay, and every few months she got to go get more MRIs so she could see from the scans how the MS was turning her brain into swiss cheese. This isn't widely known, but those meds, which are all that's available to most people with MS, also have a common side effect -- they make people taking them suicidal, just in case the shitty circumstances weren't depressing enough.
In recent years new meds have been made available from research funded by events like these. My sister now gets an IV medication once a month that has turned the progression of the disease completely around -- she has won national dance championships several times since being on them (and is, to my knowledge, the only person with MS to have done this). She has almost completed her nursing degree and is hoping to be a pediatric nurse. She is mobile, independent, and functioning. She can see, ride her bike for miles, and hold a job. She is no longer suicidally depressed.
But these aren't available to everyone. These meds cost $3000 a month, so they are not available if you don't have insurance, as many people with MS don't because they can't work. They are highly restricted to people who can get into certain studies. Money you donate doesn't just go to finding a drug that the lucky can take; it goes to finding better forms for these medications so a poor person with MS can buy a much less expensive and invasive pill instead of injections. It goes toward finding treatments for symptoms like extreme fatigue, joint pain, and muscle spasticity so a person with MS can work instead of being forced into a never-ending spiral of poverty and declining health. This isn't just about a cure that's twenty years away; it's about finding solutions now for people who are just trying to get by now.
If you can donate even five dollars, if you can forgo a Starbucks or a couple of cans of pop over the next couple of weeks, it would be so appreciated you can't even imagine. You can donate anonymously if you want, at this website.
If you are one of the many people who can't donate this year because the economy is so terrible, please consider making a phone call or writing a snail-mail letter to your senator or representative instead on issues that affect MS patients, particularly things like stem cell research, public funds providing access to healthcare for the poor and those with preexisting conditions, discrimination in schools and workplaces, accessibility in workplaces and on public transit, and even medical marijauna. These things are needed just as much as money, especially as funding gets slashed and fundamentalists with no understanding of scientific research try to block stem cell research.
Thank you for reading this!