Rare Disease Day

Today is Rare Disease Day. Check out ways you can get involved here.

Having rare diseases is an enormous part of my experience living as a patient, if not the most defining characteristic. Read a more detailed and well-argued version of my thoughts here, in my official Rare Disease Day post from a couple of years ago.

(Because, you know, were I to attempt something like that today, with work and symptoms and pediatric doctor appointments and awful rainy weather and physical therapy, I’d blink and miss posting today altogether. And that would be a huge advocacy fail.)

I will say, though, that the rare disease phenomenon was never more omnipresent than during my pregnancy and delivery. A high-risk, medically intensive pregnancy is one thing. A high-risk, medically intensive pregnancy with rare diseases? That’s a whole other kettle of fish. Limited data, limited testing available, limited understanding and awareness of the disease(s) on the part of health care professionals, and very limited experience working with pregnant patients like me is a natural byproduct of living with rare diseases. Like so many patients, I’ve found it frustrating when practitioners don’t know what I have, can’t pronounce it right, and lump me in with patients whose diagnoses are not the same.

But when that happens and it’s my baby’s health at stake, too? Much harder.

When you live with disease so few people have, you don’t have the same sense of community. You might not ever know someone with your condition in person, and you will likely never see a disease-specific walk-a-thon or awareness bracelet. Sometimes, I feel like the real community we have is the umbrella population of rare disease patients, where we are united by what makes us different.

Today is a day for all of us to show solidarity, to advocate for the research and awareness so crucial to our health.

National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week

It’s spring, which means the disease walk-a-thons, bike races, charity walks, and general awareness campaigns tend to kick into high gear.

As a rare disease patient, I watch these mobilizations with a mix of curiosity, appreciation, and intrigue. That these populations are big enough to sustain such events is, of course, a double-edged sword: so many people are impacted by them that there is strength in numbers, but that those numbers are so high is the very reason for the mobilization.

I had Rare Disease Day, and that was a start for me. People I love (or the people other people in my life love) live with all sorts of conditions, so I find myself sponsoring things like MS bike rides, arthritis or heart disease walks, or diabetes or specific cancer awareness events more and more. I’ve done the charity walk for Children’s Hospital Boston for several years.

But it’s the first year I’ve been aware of the existence of Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week, and I’m interested in it for many of the same reasons I wrote about for Rare Disease Day and many of the same reasons I wrote a book about chronic illness in younger adults:

This is a population whose needs are both unique and overlooked. There are thousands of types of cancer, but the larger universal experiences of getting diagnosed with it and living with it as a young adult are significant. From access to care and early detection to issues of employment and family-planning, these challenges affect so many younger adults across the country.

I had the chance to speak in person with Kairol Rosenthal last week, and it’s largely due to her advocacy that YAWC is on my radar this week. For a more in-depth discussion of young adults with cancer and the similarities they share with young adults with chronic illness, see my review of Rosenthal’s new book, Everything Changes.