Your Support is Needed...

It's a new year. I've thought long and hard about topics and what I wanted to address in 2008. I actually thought I'd be talking politics and the primaries, the road to the election. Something else has moved into the front of my brain, and I cannot ignore it.

Late each year, early the next, we are flooded with requests for donations. The local food bank, homeless shelter, American Heart Association, MS Society, Diabetes Association, Muscular Dystrophy, and countless others are letting us know that the need for support never goes away. Research dollars are important, if not for cures, for things that can be improved...provide a longer, better quality of life. All stories tug at the heart and we feel compelled to give, if we can. And that's the hard part. How do you choose? And if you give now, you're on mailing lists, asking for more throughout the year. And maybe you just haven't more to give.

Most of your friends and family could benefit from one or several of these requests, because these days there are often many diseases common in families...heart conditions, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's...the list is endless it seems. And so I've decided that I can't give to everyone, but I can give to those that affect me and my family the most. Likely the American Heart Association will get something this year. Heart trouble exists in both my family and Pat's, making it something that can adversely affect us or our children and grandchildren. Diabetes is another that we both suffer from, so research there is a good idea. And now, liver disease. It's called NASH, a non-alcoholic form of hepatitis that can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer, and death.

NASH is fatty liver, with inflammation and scarring...the liver is slowly winding it's way to cirrhosis. Why is not known. What impacts it in a positive way is not known. How long you have to reverse it is not known. Yes, there's a lot of research going on. Results are mixed, and again, not a lot is known. We know that we must without fail make huge changes; that is a certainty. Just how we go about that is not yet determined, not completely anyway. And what affect it will have is not certain either. So our lives must change and the outcome is unknown. The stage that Pat is at gives us some time to choose, but that time is limited.

So, learning is going to take up some time. Interviewing doctors, surgeons, whoever, will take more time. Once the course of action is set, we follow it. And because this disease has personally affected us, we will talk about it, we will donate to finding a solution, we will actively fight it as best we can.

So, the diseases and issues that confront us on a personal level are the ones we must support. That's my resolution for 2008. To be aware of the health issues that threaten us, and to be proactive in dealing with them. May better health find us all, and soon.