From email group:

Dear IAS friends,

Thanks to Connie Haber for reminding me about the National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week!! This special week is and ideal time to share your ARD story with the media - and also with your church. Unfortunately, the only way this debilitating disorder/disease is going to be brought to the attention of our national government, is by adhesion-sufferers themselves!!

We all need to do what we can to call attention to ARD!! What can we do?
by sharing our particular ARD story via local newspapers.
via local newspapers throughout the United States - and particularly by the senators and representatives

Today I sent the following press release to our local newspaper. I hope that each one of you will be motivated to do this via your local newspaper - and I have done.

Helen Dynda



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PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.....

Prepared by Ms. Lisa Copen, founder & director of Rest Ministries; 858-486-4685; toll-free 888-751-REST (7378); web site: www.invisibleillness.com; email: rest@restministries.org ]

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X> National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week - September 22-28, 2003

More than 1 in 3 Americans has a chronic condition, and despite what we may assume, 60% of those who live with daily illness or pain are between the ages of 18 and 64. The majority of chronic illness is invisible, including the 9 million people who currently live with cancer and the millions who suffer the side effects of cancer treatment.
September 22-28, 2003 is National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week. The theme is "But You Look So Good!" It is a major public awareness campaign sponsored by Rest Ministries, an organization that offers a support environment for those who live with chronic illness or pain.

"Living with an illness that is invisible to those around us can often have a more devastating effect on our emotional health than the physical pain," explains Lisa Copen, 33, founder of Rest Ministries who lives with rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. "Friends and family of those with chronic illness care a great deal about what their loved ones are going through, but oftentimes the invisibility of the illness sets up an environment for misunderstandings and even doubt about the validity of the illness. We hope to increase awareness of how many people 'look great' but are hurting deeply."

Helen Dynda, age 72, lives with the chronic pain of Adhesions-Related Disorder (ARD). She says: "Five days after a laparotomy in February 1970, it took me 27 years before I was correctly diagnosed as having Adhesions-Related Disorder (ARD).

August 1997 I was finally diagnosed correctly as having "massive adhesions."

There is only one diagnostic test that is capable of diagnosing either adhesions or endometriosis - a diagnostic laparoscopy!! Unfortunately, this is a surgical procedure - and surgery itself is the number one cause of adhesions.

The following web sites offer support and education for the thousands of people - around the world - who suffer from chronic pain as the result of adhesions. The following web sites offer support and education about adhesions-related disorder: www.adhesions.org and www.adhesions.de/ .

Outreach includes various events: the distribution of literature, When a Friend Has a Chronic Illness: What to Say, How to Help. Resources include But You Look So Good: A Guide to Understanding and Encouraging People With Chronic, Debilitating Illness and Pain. Churches across the U.S. will be participating by having various testimonies shared about living with illness. Bumper stickers and other promotional items are available. Special chat guests will be online and For a complete list of events and resources visit www.invisibleillness.com or call 888-751-7378. "The feeling of knowing that one's illness and pain is acknowledged can have a great impact on how a person copes with living with illness," says Copen. "We hope that by recognizing people with illness rarely feel as good as they look, they will begin to feel better understood, leading them to a more invigorating

My thanks to the Hoffman Tribune for allowing me to share this very important message about the chronic illness I have suffered with, adhesions. Adhesions related disorder is considered to be one of the many " invisible illnesses".
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we ALL can do this... we all can tell our stories and ask the papers to print it and spread the word. I have been plastering flyers in grocery stores, and department stores with the linbks to the boards.