We all get fed up with having a chronic disease.   It wears us out, and it grows old after a while.

How many times can we tell our family and friends and co-workers NO?

This is a very humorous take on this topic written by a PIDD patient and friend of mine, Shawne.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

                                     I want a divorce!

Listen, this immune deficiency thing was fun for a while. I mean I’d been looking for so long, years and years. I had spent hours searching the Internet, reading profiles, talking to important smart people who seemed like they might be able help me find it. I even flew all the way to Rochester, Minnesota just because I thought maybe I’d meet it there. But even in Rochester, Minnesota, I didn’t find my immune deficiency.

I’d nearly given up hope of ever finding anything that was right for me, when that nice doctor in Boston finally introduced me to my immune deficiency. I was so happy. I mean some people look their whole lives and die before they every find something like my immune deficiency. I knew how lucky I was.

So for a while, it was great. Like I could finally relax now that I’d found it. It went to bed with me every night and it was always still there when I woke up in the morning. It even came to work with me. And if I didn’t feel up to doing anything much, it was perfectly content to hang out on the couch and watch bad movies with me.  With my immune deficiency, I finally felt heard after all those years of trying to get someone to listen. Especially doctors. I’d been trying so hard for so long to figure out a way to get doctors to listen to me and it turned out the immune deficiency was pretty good at helping me with that. It spoke up for me, when I couldn’t. Also, it introduced me to a lot of its other good friends, which I’m grateful for.

But here’s the thing…it’s starting to smother me. I mean all this closeness; don’t you think it’s just a little too much? I’m sick of the way it leaves my sheets all wet with sweat at night, and it leaves little balls of kleenex everywhere. It doesn’t seem to care if the house is a disaster and if the laundry hasn’t been done in weeks. In fact, I think it prefers things that way. It reliably attacks me every three months, dragging me to one of those doctors it seems to be so fond of. I’m beginning to find that experience to be a little boring. At night sometimes, it stays so close I can’t even breathe. Literally, I have to take a shower right away in the morning just to get it off my chest and get a little breathing room. Half the time, it follows me into the bathroom. Speaking of bathrooms, it even wants to control what I eat and, if I do eat something it thinks I shouldn’t, it goes out of its way to make me pay for it.

It distracts me at work. And it’s clear it doesn’t want me spending time with anyone else, because just about every time I make a plan, my immune deficiency finds a way to try to force me to stay home. I always go anyway; I refuse to give in to my immune deficiency! But then my immune deficiency insists on going with me and doing everything it can to mess up my good time anyway. I really fear it’s trying to convince me I should just stay home with it and watch bad movies all day. But see, that life may be fine for the immune deficiency, but it isn’t fine for me. I mean this business of controlling what I eat, keeping me from having fun with anyone else, attacking my body and forcing me to stick needles in myself - doesn’t that sound a little like a domestic violence situation?

So, I’ve decided to file for a divorce from my immune deficiency. I know it’ll be hard. It may try to attack me and it may do everything in its power to stop me from leaving it. I’m going to need a really really good lawyer. You see, I just don’t want to be married to it anymore. Maybe I’ll call that nice doctor in Boston who originally introduced me to my immune deficiency. Maybe he knows a good lawyer who can help me with my divorce.

Reference No.:PPTF07005 from PPTA

Statement on Safety of Plasma Protein Therapies and the H5N1 Viruses
PPTA members are committed to providing safe and effective therapies and PPTA understands that patients who rely on plasma protein therapies may have concerns about the possible transmission of highly virulent strains of influenza H5N1 viruses
through these therapies. Therefore, PPTA members continue to work to ensure that these viruses or any other emerging disease, do not compromise the safety of plasma
protein therapies.

Influenza H5N1 viruses are lipid enveloped viruses.1 PPTA members have spent years studying the effects of the manufacturing process on lipid enveloped viruses. All data
demonstrate that the manufacturing processes, which contain commonly used inactivation methods such as pasteurization, vapor heating, low pH, and solvent detergent treatment methods, readily inactivate these types of viruses. Recently, a
study led by Dr. Thomas R. Kreil confirmed that the H5N1 virus is effectively inactivated through these commonly used methods.2 These findings demonstrate the high level of
safety found in today’s plasma protein therapies. PPTA will continue to monitor the spread of H5N1 viruses and remain vigilant in efforts to ensure the safety of these lifesaving
therapies.

Here is the Pandemic link from the PPTA so that you can check your current geographical area, learn more about how it applies to us, and see additional pertinent information.

http://www.pptapandemicinfo.org/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/