I belong to a support group mailing list on Yahoo for MSA. I haven't been on there for ages, but decided to stick my nose in today. One of the frequent contributors on there finally lost her husband to MSA. It never ceases to amaze me how much something like that can totally change my outlook on the day.
I don't know these people at all, just through their posts. Never talked to them on the phone, never met them in person. But I feel just awful about the death of this gentleman. One thing the internet has done for good is support for people with diseases that aren't "sexy" or the new "in" disorder. Nobody knows what MSA is for the most part. They say, "MS?" and you have to go into a lenghthy discussion of what it is. For someone dealing day-to-day with the rigors of caring for someone with this disease, or worse yet the patient themselves, this is a pain in the butt. (I cleaned that up, by the way.)
So when you hear about someone else that has lost someone to this disease, it hurts all over again.
I shudder and shed a tear each time I hear of another MSA death. You are right, it isn't a sexy disease, and garners very little attention.
ReplyDelete