Sunday, May 24, 2009

Woman with MS scales Everest...and Viagra

In this mornings paper there was a brief (BRIEF, you would think it would deserve more than BRIEF), article about a woman with MS who had just completed scaling Mount Everest. She in fact has now scaled all seven major summits in the world.
Now, I think that's a hell of an accomplishment for ANYONE. I mean seriously, think back to your high school days and all those egotistical jocks (heck turn on the TV and listen to all the PRO egotistical jocks. How many of them could scale ONE of those summit's let alone all seven. Are you listening Mr. Bryant or Mr. Owens), who barely acknowledged our existence. How many have done anything remotely as remarkable? Let alone doing so with a Neurological disease. NONE. (It was also mentioned she is the first to climb Everest WITH a neurological disease). Kiddos to her.
Now, that being said. *&*$#@* Why can't I have HER M.S.?!?!? WHY can't MY M.S. be a mere inconvenience, so minor that I'M climbing Mt. Everest a week from Tuesday?? Why does my Everest have to be simply getting dressed independently in the morning? O.K, O.K,. I know. There ARE so many out there who wish they had MY M.S. and could dress themselves independently. I get it. I just hate this damn disease and wish NONE of us had it. That not a single one of us had to had help getting dressed, getting around, going to the bathroom, driving, or anything else. I wish everyone of us would wake up tomorrow morning and the headline on every paper across the world would read that an immediate cure for MS had been found. Then we could go back to $&*ching about having to go to work everyday and nagging our husbands to pick up their dirty socks.
I wish folks like Al Gore would shut up about Global Warming (not that I don't think the issue is important I just think he's a total hypocrite and the last person who should be saying squat about global warming, much less anything else) and Nancy Pelosi would just...... shut up. UNLESS they are going to start taking on and supporting causes that THEY aren't going to benefit neither a dime from or an increase in power by supporting. Things like a cure for MS. But, I digress. I'm sure there are those out there that believe that our plant will implode as a result of global warming tomorrow and that the CIA really DID withhold information from Madame Speaker and those issues are FAR more important and deserve far more media coverage than the lives of everyday people being destroyed NOW by MS and other diseases.
How sad is it that the combined salary of the New York Yankee ball players for ONE season is more money than is being devoted to MS research? That getting funding for MS research in the United States had to be hidden in a defense spending bill as "pork" to get passed? If we spent the combined salaries of all the professional athletes in the US for ONE year it would fund MS research for years. What a sad commentary on the values of our society that professional athletes are paid, (PLAYING A GAME for a few months each year), more than all the combined money spent on medical research not only for MS, but ALS, Parkinson's and all the other Neurological diseases that receive so little funding, yet devastate so many lives.
I didn't intend to blog about that. This entry took on a life of it's own. (As they tend too). I didn't even get into the drug companies and the outrageous prices they charge for our injections and other medications. I mean seriously if Viagra can support Nascar why can't it support MS research?

1 comment:

Living Day to Day with Multiple Sclerosis said...

Kimberly, you are so absolutely right. This is what is so frustrating. I feel the same way about all the commercials about breast cancer. I know it is important and I also know that many many women suffer and die from breast cancer but if only 1 commercial a day was dedicated to MS Awareness maybe then we would get more support and acknowledgment. It is crazy what the newscasters feel is so important that they talk about it over and over all day for 3 days straight but yet nothing about MS or about the lady that climbed Mt. Everest with a disease like MS. Come on now.... Like that isn't super important???