The isolation, the desolation, the filtration… just kidding. But seriously, I think over time a very difficult aspect of Lupus is the isolation. Lupus is your immune system hyped up like a five year old the day after Halloween, right? So we take all these drugs to shut down our immune systems. Because when our immune system is going bonkers, it isn’t just attacking foreign bodies, it is attacking our bodies, specifically our organs. So, we take all these drugs and have no immune system, all is good, right? Well, without an immune system, the common cold is fairly nasty, not to mention the flu. A girl in my Lupus support group DIED from the flu in January, so now I don’t get to go anywhere, didn’t before, but now I am really home bound. For the most part this doesn’t bother me, I am kinda an extreme introvert and I am pretty good at amusing myself. Not to mention that I sleep, a lot. But… occasionally, I miss outings.
I really miss work and my critters (aka students) and peers and all that. This past week teachers in Oklahoma have been walking out demanding more educational funding, because it is bad here (Like 40 kids to a class, 4 day a week school, no supplies, everything but sports being cut bad) and I so want to go help. But I can’t, because I have stupid Lupus (I promise to stop whining now). I am so proud of the people I worked with, my colleagues. I worked at Edmond Memorial High School and the teachers from this school have done a tremendous job organizing and coming together, it is just incredible, they have become leaders not only for the district but in some ways for the movement. I feel like this is a historic event that the people of Oklahoma will talk about. It feels like a paradigm shift, although I don’t think our governor and legislators (at least the Republican ones) have figured that out yet. Our governor keeps saying things like, ya’ll come down and say thank you for these here scraps then get back to work, ya hear! Ok, I ad libbed a little there, but not much. I can’t figure out if she and the legislators don’t know how insulting they are or if they are intentionally insulting and just don’t care.
Whatever comes of this, it will not be a return to the status quo. I sincerely hope this will enable Oklahomans to go to the voting booth and be swayed by something other than pro-life/pro-choice because I think that is all most people use to vote on now and it keeps getting these people elected who don’t care about public education (they all either went to private school or were home schooled) and are in the pocket of the oil and gas industry. We, as a people, need to quit doing the same thing and expecting a different result… ;o)