Invisible Illness Awareness Week

96% of serious illnesses are 'Invisible' and not obvious to casual observers. Conditions like Lupus, heart disease, cystic fibrosis, brittle diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, myofascial pain syndrome, bilharzia, ME, bipolar disorder, cancer and a host of other conditions cause significant suffering without being obvious to other people.

It is drearily common for people to be accused of not being ill or needing a parking permit or attention seeking. Of course it hurts, but how do you handle it? Put up with ruderies and ignorance or go into gruesome medical details with a hostile and interfering stranger? Why are people so rude, anyway?

Last time I travelled on South West Trains, at Brockenhurst Station, an elderly lady had booked Travel Assistance because she could not climb the stairs to cross the bridge and go down the stairs on the other side to reach the other platform. The Platform man who was supposed to be helping us was telling me that he 'knew' the old lady and she could cross the bridge if she wanted to. He then asked me if I thought people should be made to do things before they lost their abilities due to lack of use. He seemed surprised when I said 'not necessarily'.

At her age, she could easily have had a low cardiac reserve, for instance, and 'pushing herself' to cope with all those stairs could have caused her to drop down dead right there and then! It is too bad that a railway porter feels free to make medical pronouncements on people to whom he owes a duty of care. I had never met the lady so why would he think he could discuss her with me? I wanted to have it out with him but he dashed off to meet an incoming train. I am still annoyed about it though.

Invisible Illness Awareness Week is American but I firmly believe it is something that should become worldwide. Certainly in the UK, people are quick to make snap judgements that are not helpful, to say the least.

Why not watch this brief video? It is very well put together.


Find more videos like this on Illness-Disability-Healthcare-Caregiver Ministry Network