Well last weekend we had CRPS Awareness Day and it was a huge success! It was a great way to kick off #Nervember. In case you didn’t realize November is CRPS Awareness month and we do everything in our power to try educate those around us about this disease! As I mentioned it was an extremely successful event but it’s taken the last week just to recover. Week two and I’m still trying to find my way back to normal! Now all this being said I don’t want to make it seem as though all this effort wasn’t worth it. Every bit of awareness I can raise is going to help us in the various areas we need to create change or in specific areas that need more awareness.

Often people ask me how can it be worth putting yourself through the flare ups that you go through as a result of pushing yourself to hard. Today I’m going to share with you the reason I do what I do in advocating for CRPS. I received an email today from a doctor here in the city that I live in. As I read through the email it thanked us for a great effort and evening full of education and awareness. Then I got to the last half of the email and almost fell over! It explained how they would be introducing curriculum to second year medical students about CRPS, and making changes to the chronic pain curriculum! This is huge! We need to be encouraged because it brings hope to those around us that if we raise our voices we can create change. You need to understand that no matter how big or small your efforts are that you are making a difference.

When I advocate for CRPS I think about all of the other people I know who are affected by this disease besides myself. They drive me to see beyond my own pain and to be a voice that advocates for change and breakthrough. Every patient should have a voice yet there are some who deal with so much pain that they are unable to express themselves. Those are the individuals that motivate me to keep raising the bar and speaking up for our cause. Even though I have to deal with all of what this illness throws at me I still have the ability to speak up and raise my voice.

The need for early diagnosis is another reason I’m so driven to advocate! The sooner you get diagnosed and start treating an individual with CRPS then the better the chances of reversing the symptoms. I was diagnosed so late (almost two years into the disease) that it makes trying to reverse the symptoms so very difficult. I will never say impossible but certainly it becomes more difficult when that amount of time has gone by. I want to share what happened to me not as a negative experience but one that educates and arms others with information I have gained in order for them to get a quicker diagnosis.

If we don’t understand or know what the disease is then how do we move forward with treatment and finding cures. There isn’t a single day that goes by where I don’t have to explain what the disease is at least once. Its exhausting and a little bit heartbreaking because it shows me that people still don’t know about CRPS. So when I see things like medical students having curriculum added or more people being educated it gives me hope and inspires me to make a difference! When funding for education and research are virtually non existent here in Canada then that tells me that I have to try harder in having my voice and ours as a community heard.

When people ask me how many people have CRPS in the province of Saskatchewan or in all of Canada, I answer them with the all to familiar answer of “I don’t know” out of frustration. If there is a number for here in Canada its hard to find! When you go online to search the disease your lucky if you come across a website that is current. Again another reason I want my voice along with so many others to be heard. If we just sit back and be complacent then we are never going to see any of this change. The patient voice has power but only when we speak up as a body who believe that we can bring about that change!

So I couldn’t think of a better way to end this post except to share with you two people in the U.S. who excel at being a voice for chronic awareness. Ken Taylor & Barby Ingle of International Pain Foundation who’s pictures for their #NERVEmber campaign you’ve been looking at through this post. I first met Barby at HealtheVoices17 in Chicago and the amount of passion and energy in her advocacy efforts amidst her own battle against multiple illnesses was infectious! I have met Ken only through the technology of computers but his energy and passion is equally infectious! These are two leaders that have a clear vision when it comes to advocacy and we need to have that same passion and desire. I encourage you to drop by their site and see not only what this months initiative is all about but to gain some inspiration into the work they do and what you yourself can get involved in when it comes to advocating!