My Cage "Classic" 10/14/2007

Yeah. Norm just overthinks everything. Including overthinking everything.. Again though, thank you for your well thought out reply.

My Cage

It's an interesting question. These things have always seemed to me to fall in two categories. One is the kind of illness that you either get all the way better from or you die. Breast cancer for example. Lots of people who have had it and are in remission or otherwise well (is it remission if you catch it early and have a successful mastectomy?) and now are well enough to go out and run for the cause. It's a way for people who have shared this particular trauma to connect with one another, to give back, and when well to reflect on how far they've come. It's also a way for loved ones who feel powerless to participate in a structured act of support. It also functions as a way to remember and commemorate those who have been lost. On the other hand you have runs on behalf of really terrible diseases that have no cure and are degenerative. It's a thing where people participate in the limited way they can, and then also as their condition deteriorates it's a morale thing where friends and loved ones and/or carers push someone in a wheelchair or otherwise carry them so they can still participate with support for the time that they are able to enjoy that. What I've not seen is much for chronic, long-term illnesses that are life-altering but non-fatal. I'm not willing to google to see if there is a Fibromyalgia Run, for example, but I think it would just function as a miserable way to distinguish that days 'haves' and 'have-nots'. I also cannot imagine allocating any 'spoons' to that activity when I need to allocate my limited time on my feet to work and grocery shopping and things like that. Anyone with fibromyalgia who participated in this would be risking a flare-up that lasted 1-3 days after. Acute and dangerous illnesses are also the best ones for mobilizing community support because the diagnosis is clear-cut and urgent. Something like fibromyalgia that seems like it might go away but doesn't, that doesn't get identified quickly and that there is evolving criteria for? It doesn't ignite interest in the same way.

FilloryCitrus

i just like watching someone to work for a donation i was always going to give.