One Obstacle--Sarcoidosis

One of our biggest obstacles that affects everything that we do is my
(Robin) disease of Sarcoidosis. Two months ago, very thankfully, I celebrated my fiftieth Birthday (Thank you Lord!!). That means that I have been suffering from this disease for half of my life. Even though I began getting ill near my twenty-fifth Birthday, I was not diagnosed properly for another ten years. After Mike and I were married and began talking about a more simple life, my disease seemed to be ramping up. We think that this may have had a great deal to do with the home we had purchased and recently moved into. It seems that our little nest had been extensively fumigated  with anti-termite  chemicals only months before we moved in. With me being somewhat of a "Canary", we believe that these chemicals helped to damage my immune system and allow the Sarcoidosis to flare.  Obviously, this took our focus off of most everything except my illness. I even had to abandon my dessert catering business, which i dearly loved. My disease has continued to progress over the years and three years ago it caused me to go blind. Part of our dream of a simple life is to bring my husband Mike home from full-time work to part-time as soon as we get some of the bills paid. This will allow us more time to be together.

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What is Sarcoidosis? Sarcoidosis (pronounced SAR-COY-DOE-SIS) is an inflammatory disease that can affect almost any organ in the body. It causes heightened immunity, which means that a person’s immune system, which normally protects the body from infection and disease, overreacts, resulting in damage to the body’s own tissues. The classic feature of sarcoidosis is the formation of granulomas, microscopic clumps of inflammatory cells that group together (and look like granules, hence the name). When too many of these clumps form in an organ they can interfere with how that organ functions.

In people in the United States, sarcoidosis most commonly targets the lungs and lymph nodes, but the disease can and usually does affect others organs, too, including (but not limited to) the skin, eyes, liver, salivary glands, sinuses, kidneys, heart, the muscles and bones, and the brain and nervous system.