Something to Celebrate

This coming Friday is World Lupus Day.

On Saturday I'm going to the Lupus Association Queensland World Lupus Day lunch.

With all the rotten stuff lupus does to me, it sort of seems odd that I want to get together with other lupies and celebrate.

But I've been thinking about it, and the reason I'm just as excited about this lunch as I was about getting together with my family and friends for my birthday dinner last night, is that I really do have some things to celebrate.

Here's three things I'm going to celebrate on World Lupus Day:

1. I'm not alone.  The other people I'm getting together with know exactly what it's like.  We're all there for each other. These are people I might never have met in any other circumstances, but we share a bond. Like soldiers in the trenches, we've fought alongside each other, and no-one who hasn't been there can fully understand what we've been through.
2. I'm still alive. The wolf may have taken some lupies since last World Lupus Day, but it hasn't taken all of us. This is a celebration of life, but also a defiance of the Big, Bad, Wolf. For those of us who get together, our dark fairy tale isn't over, but we've come a long way through it. The wolf has been stalking us, may even have attacked a few times, but we've fought back. So far, we haven't been defeated.
3. Lupus research has come so far in recent years, that it's only a matter of time before we're celebrating a cure. And the celebrations, world-wide, on that World Lupus Day are going to be phenomenal.