Sometimes you hurt someone's feelings without being aware of it. Often you never know you did. Thankfully some people do tell you where you went in the wrong.
Someone I follow on Twitter appeared to have a new portrait picture. I didn't remember seeing the sunny tan before. Since this person tweeted about an upgrade, I complimented in return: upgrade = extra tan?
Mind you, it may be winter on the other side of the globe, it's high summer in the western hemisphere, so how wrong could that remark have been? Quite wrong. A rare disease called Addison's makes a person's skin turn a reddish brown, and that's not all, as I found out Online. Addison's is not something to joke about. Thanks to the Tweep's response I now know a little bit about the disease.
The incident made me think of grief and how mourners are sadly the ones who have to educate the others. Thanks to the TV series "House MD" viewers are introduced more and more to hitherto barely known diseases. I've read that members of patients' support groups have written letters to the producers of "House MD" to thank them for educating viewers about diseases that are often unknown and not understood. As far as I know they haven't covered Addison's.
The next time I see a person with an unseasonable tan, I'll be reminded of what I found out today.
Knowledge may result in compassion.
HealthScouter Addison's Disease: Addison Disease Symptoms and Addison's Disease Treatment
2009 Conquering Addison's Disease - The Empowered Patient's Complete Reference - Diagnosis, Treatment Options, Prognosis (Two CD-ROM Set)
This work by Judith van Praag is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
4 comments:
We never know. I am always careful after a similar faux pax. I really take more care these days because of how badly I felt about saying something off the cuff and in the process hurting a friend.
Hi Ciss B, truth is, there's a lot of human suffering we're unaware of until we suffer the same ourselves. Educating the ignorant seems to be the fate of those in the know. Not pretty, but necessary. At least we care! That's what I tell myself.
Oh Judith I love your new website. It is very 'artsy' as some of my friends would say.
My grandson has a very rare syndrome called Smiths -Lemliopids- Syndrome. He does not look like 'other' kids. I took him to the supermarket and a woman asked me, with her face all scrunched up and looking mean, "What's wrong with that kid." I wanted to take Kyle and run, I wanted to slap her face but instead I scrunched my face up and did my best mean look[which honestly does not look mean just funny] and I said to her "Nothing is wrong with him; what is wrong with your face?" I know two wrongs do not make a right, the words just fell from my mouth.
Dear Doreen,
Thanks for calling my dutchessabroad "new". That's a great response since I lounged it in 2005, 6 years ago, already!
I'm sorry to read how heartless that woman's reaction was seeing your grandson. Clearly someone who needs to be educated and not just about the Smiths -Lemliopids- Syndrome. Your response made me smile.
Have you written about this syndrome on your blog?
Post a Comment