One of the important things an advocate has to learn is how to choose the focus of your efforts. With a disease that doesn’t hit that many people, that is treatable, and with treatments that return us to health, I suspect you cannot find much of an audience. Yes, it makes us very ill, and it would surely help for people in our immediate environment to have a better understanding of what we are coping with. But most of that effort has to be on a one-on-one basis. Even IF an article on Graves’ hit the newstand, I doubt that it would “register” enough on the reading public that when someone they know comes down with it they will even remember the details. It isn’t dramatic enough. And, no, not enough people die anymore from it. I don’t, however, think that that should make us “give up”. If WE don’t work to at least educate those around us, then who will? We just need to sharpen our focus and work where it will do the most good. So, we work the support board to help those who, like us, have the problem. Those of us committed to this board try to communicate good information, as well as compassion. We can support general thyroid research organizations, too. And NGDF can use our help. Through educating ourselves, trying to raise the level of awareness of our doctors about just WHAT the problems we confront are, and helping those in our immediate environment understand, we can make an impact, little by little. I truly believe this.
Bobbi
NGDF – Ass’t Online Facilitator
