World Wide Spread Pain
As some of you know, I'm in the process of finalizing a new book that will hopefully hit the market by the end of this year, or very early next. The book is a spin off of this blog and discusses topics about the disease, hope to cope, and also offers my tips, tricks, and rather strong opinions of big business and the healthy people of society. I even get into politics with this book, a subject that I try to never discuss here. It's been fun to write because I really got a chance to let my hair down with this one, so I hope all of you will like it.
I'm getting most of my material from recent news articles found on the web. Some of the stories are interesting, some of them are a repeat of what we fibromites already know, and some of them are just too shocking to even believe. I found one article so shocking, that I just have to make it the topic for today. The numbers in this survey are really big. This topic will appear in the book, but I feel it needs to be here in the blog too.
Health care is a topic that is very close to my heart. I believe that everyone on this planet deserves to feel their own kind of fabulous. To me, it's a God-given right. Here in the US, we are called the land of the free, and I would have agreed with that statement up until recently. You see, I feel we are free to pay what big business deems as a fair price, and I include the health care industry in this statement. I feel this way because I've spent a considerable amount of money on my health, so much so, that my family and I had to postpone our dreams of owning a home, just so I could focus on feeling better. Now, I did say postpone because I feel that one day we will be able to accomplish this dream, but I had really hoped that dream would come sooner. We are going on almost 10 years of postponement and it's really getting to the point of ridiculous. Life should not cost that much.
I know I'm not the only one who feels this way and I'm not the only one who has these kinds of problems. I hear it all the time from family, friends, and co-workers. I also know that each and everyone of you are facing the same struggles here in the US, Canada, Greece, and all the other countries out there that read Fibro and Fabulous on a regular basis. Sometimes we all may feel like we are alone in this world when we are trapped in our own finances, but we really are not. In fact, did you know that there are 40 million of us around the world that feel this way? Yep, that number is right-- 40 million people world wide are now known to have Fibromyalgia and each and everyone of those fibromites has had some kind of financial difficulty with this beast. That's an awful lot of us on the books. Now let's think about this in an even bigger term since so many of us go misdiagnosed for sometimes years, if those misdiagnosed people were to get onto the books, statistically speaking, how many people world wide suffer? Probably a lot more than 40 million.
This study is from India and I wanted to share it because it has some surprising facts. This article goes into great length about the fact that it is extremely difficult for those of us with Fibro to maintain a regular, traditional job. On average of the countries reported, 1 in 5 patients missed anywhere from 2 to 5 days of work in the past year due to Fibromyalgia. Those are alarming numbers because if these patients are missing work, they can't afford to get the right care, and so starts the vicious cycle. Health care needs to be there for everyone and every nation, it's just that simple. The article appears in it's entirety here...
http://www.thaipr.net/nc/readnews.aspx?newsid=7180CC18011F5D2DC85BD5BC458CC31B
Stay fabulous!
Love and friendship,
