Saturday, September 6, 2008

Invisible Awareness Week

From Invisible Illness.org

Have you heard about National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week? September 8-14, 2008 will feature 20 seminars via Blog Talk Radio, (4 per day, M-F) plus tons of people are helping spread the word by blogging about invisible illness issues. Do you get tired of hearing, “But you look so good?” or weary of the stares when you park in a handicapped spot? This is our chance to educate the public as well as remember we are not alone. Nearly 1 in 2 people in the USA live with an illness and 96% of it is invisible.

Schedules and links can be found at the Invisible Illness Conference homepage.And here is the rest of it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting... I could not get the link you noted to work, but I did check out
invisibleillness.wordpress.com
and it is informative to some degree except to sort of outline what is meant by invisible illness. Is it like fibrmyalsia? Chronic pain, etc?

Oregonian37 said...

Bridge:)
I tried the link to see what I messed up and it worked for me. Maybe give it another try when you get a chance.

Chronic illnesses can range from fybromyalgia to chronic fatigue syndrome to pain from back injuries or nerve damage to arthritis and countless in between. I think the word illness is not quite broad enough of a word, myself, because it encompasses a whole range of issues that are chronic and have some kind of consistent impact on one's life and well-being. I myself have several chronic conditions (osteoarthritis, rotator cuff injuries, bone spurs, plantar fasciitis) that don't show unless I over do things and flare them up. Even on what I consider to be a small scale compared to other folks, those things completely changed my life because I had to change careers.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Debra for expanding upon that for me! I had a feeling this was the type of conditions invisible illnesses encompassed. Not only can fibromyalgia and chronic pain be discouraging (I manage those), but the invisible aspects of the conditions can cause other difficulties... meaning the illnesses that others can see receive more attention. Thanks for bringing this to my attention in the first place! Wendy