IT IS LUPUS!
Lupus or SLE, is a chronic autoimmune disease that can be fatal, though with recent medical advances, fatalities are becoming increasingly rare. As with other autoimmune diseases, the immune system attacks the body's cells and tissue, resulting in inflammation and tissue damage. SLE can affect any part of the body, but most often harms the heart, joints, skin, lungs, blood vessels, liver, kidneys, and nervous system. The course of the disease is unpredictable, with periods of illness (called flares) alternating with remissions. Lupus can occur at any age, and is most common in women, particularly of non-European descent. Lupus is treatable only symptomatically, mainly with corticosteroids and immunosuppressant, however, there is currently no cure. It is estimated that between 1.5 and 2 million people in the U.S. have some form of Lupus.
Brigham & Women's Hospital
The Brigham & Women's Lupus Research Center is a world leader in the search for a cure. Patients receive multi-disciplinary care, fusing many fields to create the most dynamic form of care available for those with Lupus
Do you or someone close to you have Lupus? Share your story!
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Jean-Marc
Feb 23rd, 2009 |
I would also like to present the poem Kevin Carey wrote for the fundraiser: The First Step For Debra Highberger, 2/17/09 Where does that first step take us? the one before the other, the clumsy one, the hesitant one, the inadequate one, the step that begins all our journeys. Sometimes it leads us to the empty canvas where stroke by stroke the picture develops; each pain, each trauma, each victory sketched and brushed into the portrait we become, perhaps, not the way we intended all those lessons ago when we first squeezed a tube of paint onto the palette or felt the new fiber of charcoal on our fingers yet the step lifts us like a brittle leaf into the dry winds of spring pulls us from the dark of winter into the long light of summer days to the doorstep of a place we've known all along a place where we create a place where we learn a place where we love in spite of ourselves. Kevin Carey |
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Jean-Marc
Feb 23rd, 2009 |
I would like to thank everyone who helped make the fundraiser at the Landing a success. If you would like to read more about it visit this link: http://www.wickedlocal.com/medfield/fun/entertainment/arts/x863265653/Art-teacher-gallery-owner-reclaims-life-from-lupus |