All around the world

Love the Earth

This morning I wrote a short document for my friend about how knowing others with NF2 has impacted my life. This circumferences the “knowing on a personal level” along with “knowing [having knowledge of] others with NF2.” While I did not take much time for argument in my case, I did propose that personally knowing others with NF2 has had a greater impact in my life.

However, there is this branch (like a sublet category) in the “knowing [knowledge of] others with NF2” that I had not contemplated until this morning. The thought came: I did not know there were others around the world who lived with the same disease. It was not until I started this blog last year that these facts surfaced. How did I go almost ten years not having any thoughts that there could be others around the world who are impacted in similar struggles/disease that I face every day? The thought just blew me away. I feel almost embarrased to be so honest to say that!

A fellow blogger wrote this morning, “Choose to look at something differently, and you could just get something extraordinary,” (Kelsey Reinhart.)* I am not implying that NF2 is extraordinary (just rare)…but when I look at the world–how big it feels–knowing that there are others with NF2 around the globe who live each day just like me, suddenly makes the world seem a bit smaller. I am no longer in my mind saying, “I am the only person in the world who faces these challenges.” Granted, every NF2 patient is affected differently by the tumors, treatments, surgeries and side effects, but we have a common understanding. And that makes facing the daily challenges in my life with NF2 a bit more of an extraordinary experience.

*http://kelseyreinhart.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/perception-is-everything/