First Rheumatoid Awareness Day!!

Check out this press release!

The Rheumatoid Patient Foundation (RPF) is announcing the establishment of Rheumatoid Awareness Day to be held annually on February 2nd – a day of Astronomical Significance! We, in the Rheumatoid Patient Foundation (RPF) want – and NEED – to help bring education and awareness of this often misunderstood disease to the public. One of the worst complications of Rheumatoid Disease is the effects it has on the cardiovascular system. February is Cardiovascular Disease Month!

February 2nd is the day the Groundhog comes out of its hole to see if it can see it’s shadow. If so, it goes back in its hole and we expect 6 more weeks of winter. That six weeks is the same length of time a patient with Rheumatoid Disease has to get early diagnosis and treatment. We have a sense that be setting THIS day aside, we are “bringing the disease out of the hole” – or the shadows – so the public can “see” it!

In the movie, “Groundhog Day,” the main character keeps waking up and living the same day – over and over and over. So, too, do Rheumatoid Disease patients. We wake up each day to the same chronic symptoms. Daily, we are concerned with the disability, the pain, the stiffness, the joint deformities, and the serious complications (lung disease, heart disease, lowered immune response to infections due to the medications we must take).

As the above mentioned page says, this day has even more astronomical significance:

“Quite literally.  February 2^nd is what is known in astronomy as a cross quarter day – meaning that it is midway between a solstice and an equinox – in this case, midway between winter and spring.  Winter may still be here, but the hope of spring is approaching.  We are not out of the cold yet, but the RPF seeks to bring awareness to rheumatoid disease, to bring us into sunnier days, blossoming through education and understanding.”

Please share this information with your friends and relatives.

You can help us by:

1. Contributing to the RPF HERE. The Rheumatoid Patient Foundation (RPF) is a United States federally recognized 501(c)3 organization. Your contributions are tax-deductible!
2. Making yourself knowledgeable about Rheumatoid Disease.
3. Join RPF.
4. Place a Rheumatoid Awareness Image on your blog, FaceBook page, MySpace page with a link back to the RPF
5. Place a Twibbon on your cover and profile photos on any social networking sites you belong to
6. Send the Press Release to your local newspapers and radio/TV stations
7. Share the link to the Rheumatoid Patient Foundation (RPF) with your friends and relatives, and ask them, in turn, to share the information with theirs. Ask them to join the RPF, to publicize our new annual day, and to educate themselves about Rheumatoid Disease.

I thank any of you who are willing and able to do these things!