The importance of community

Angela Odom was recently diagnosed with lupus. On her blog, she recently voiced a complaint that I can certainly understand: people with chronic illnesses need a community to help them understand and cope. I was fortunate to learn about the value of community when I worked at the Fox Chase Cancer Center as a young woman. When I was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis in 1986 at the age of 29, and especially when I became pregnant with my second child five years later, I desperately wanted that kind of community -- not only for myself, but for my husband and children as well. It was not to be. My doctors had never treated a woman with severe AS, much less a pregnant one. The local Arthritis Foundation had nothing to offer, either. The AS websites (such as this one) that have sprung up in recent years have been helpful in showing me that there are other people out there, and many of us are finding ways to go on with our lives.

And in the end, that is what we all have to do. Play the hand we are dealt, and do the best we can with it.