30 Things About My Invisible Illness You May Not Know

We’ve all seen the list “20 things about me” “50 thing about me you didn’t know…” They can actually be interesting if you want to get to know the person better! We’ll we’ve got one I haven’t seen anywhere yet, “30 Things About My Invisible Illness You May Not Know.”

Just copy and paste it below and put it up on your blog, send it to your friends, paste in on Facebook (if it’s too long put it in your “notes” section.)

THEN… post a COMMENT BELOW with the link to where you posted it and we are going to choose 2 people to receive a prize Sept 5th, 2009.

Let’s spread the word about II Week this way and it’s a wonderful way to share a little bit about your life. And don’t forget to add the last paragraph for people know where to find us!

You can see my answers here (Lisa)

30 Things About My Invisible Illness You May Not Know

1. The illness I live with is:
2. I was diagnosed with it in the year:
3. But I had symptoms since:
4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is:
5. Most people assume:
6. The hardest part about mornings are:
7. My favorite medical TV show is:
8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is:
9. The hardest part about nights are:
10. Each day I take __ pills & vitamins. (No comments, please)
11. Regarding alternative treatments I:
12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose:
13. Regarding working and career:
14. People would be surprised to know:
15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been:
16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was:
17. The commercials about my illness:
18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is:
19. It was really hard to have to give up:
20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is:
21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would:
22. My illness has taught me:
23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say that gets under my skin is:
24. But I love it when people:
25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is:
26. When someone is diagnosed I’d like to tell them:
27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is:
28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was:
29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because:
30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel:

Find out more about National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week and the 5-day free virtual conference with 20 speakers Sept 14-18, 2009 at www.invisibleillness.com

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DID YOU FILL OUT THE MEME ABOVE? If so, tell us where to find your answers in the comments below and by listing your blog, FB page, whatever, you will automatically be entered to win a prize! We are selecting 2 prize winners Saturday 9/5.

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Tweet Something About #iiwk09 Today

Are you on Twitter? We have over 2000 followers of us on http://www.twitter.com/invisibleillwk.

In fact, if you Twitter about your illness you may want to join a group Lisa started Illness Twitters .

But I regress. There are loads of things to tweet about Invisible Illness Week! We have done

• 20 Things to Say to a Chronically Ill Friend
• 20 Things NOT to Say to a Chronically Ill Friend
• 25 Illness Facts in 25 Days
• If Your Friend is Ill Tips (27 of them)
• Friendship Tweets
  

We will also be sending out tweets from our speakers, tweets about the seminar topics for our virtual conference and more.

A fast way of locating tweets about Invisible Illness Week is to search twitter for #iiwk09 which is our hashtag. If you do any tweets on II Week, be sure to put #iiwk09 somewhere in the tweet so people can find it later when they search.

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Share Our Video

Can you take just a minute today and share our Invisible Illness Week Video with your online illness support groups, friends, Facebook or Twitter pals or anyone else who may benefit?

With just a few different clicks you can share it on your Facebook wall, your own blog, add it to your favorite You Tube videos, bookmark it with a social bookmarking tool so more people can now about it, or email the link to friends.

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Are You an Author?

Do you have a book that has anything to do with health, illness, caregiving, or a book with a chapter that could tie into National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week. NICIAW is Sept 14-20, 2009 and you can find out more info at www.invisibleillnessweek.com .

We are having a 5-day virtual conference with 20 speakers giving seminars. We encourage you to use this week to pitch topics to the media and if you are interested in being a guest blogger or submitting an article for the NICIAW web site submit at here. Follow the founder @invisibleillwk on Twitter for updates.

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Looking for Prize Donations

Throughout the next few weeks we will be giving away some prizes to our participants. We are already building a wonderful selection of goodies that we are excited to give away to you! But we’d love even more fun things to share with those of you who have helped us spread the word by tweeting, blogging, commenting, writing and more!

If you have friends who own their own small business, are authors, etc. please let them know we are looking for any small goodies to share. The prize will be sent directly to the recepient.

If you donate a gift we will post it on the PRIZE PAGE at our web site; we will say thanks in a “tweet,” and also say thanks to you in a post to all of our Facebook friends that have joined our cause (Over 2000 people and counting…)

What are we looking for? Anything someone with an illness may find useful/helpful or comforting. This includes but is not limited to PJs, jewelry, books, food gifts, videos/music, games, bath/spa items, consultations online or on the phone for services, whatever. If you can donate something, zip us off an email at our form and we’ll let you know how to proceed. A photo is helpful too!

Do you Twitter? If so, can you Tweet this for us?

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RT @invisibleillwk needs prizes 4 Invisible Illness Week-books, consultations, spa gifts – want 2 donate? invisibleillness.com

Thank you!

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Add Our Button to Your Site

Looking for an easy way to let others know about II Week? Put our animated button on your web site. Code is below that you can just copy and paste.

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Update Sent to Plp at Facebook

Are you signed up for the  Invisible Illness Week Cause on Facebook? This is what we sent out our friends over there 7/13.

________________________

Thank you so much for signing up for the Invisible Illness Week Cause as it’s something I care about soooo-o-o much! Please remember to invite your friends!

Nearly 1 in 2 people live with illness so everyone on your friends list has someone they care about who is ill.

I wanted to share a few highlights with you this week!

* If you follow us on Twitter @invisibleillwk you will get lots of updates. It’s a great way to stay in touch. If you Twitter about illness topics, be sure to check out our new social network of influential Twitter-ers at http://www.illnesstwitters.ning.com

* Be sure to go to our web site and sign up to get updates there too at http://www.invisibleillnessweek.com . We’ve recently started a prayer team for Invisible Illness Week, we’re tweeting 20 things to say to an ill person (in 20 days) and have some great blogs posts.

* Do you blog about illness? We have a couple of opportunities just for you!

(1) I am going on a “Blog Tour” to spread the word about II Week. Details are here http://invisibleillnessweek.com/?p=1348 or sign up here http://ow.ly/hcnx to host an interview with me about II Week. You will receive a free digital copy of Beyond Casseroles: 505 Ways to Encourage a Chronically Ill Friend too!

(2) Sign up to be a guest blogger. Submit a blog post about 500-700 words here http://ow.ly/hcpe

I’ve had a number of people ask “Does my illness (fill in the blank) count?” If you have to wonder, yes, it counts. Whether it’s autism or bi-polar, endometriosis or heart disease, diabetes or cancer, RSD or Menier’s Disease, we want to have as many illnesses represented. It’s a great time to increase awareness about an illness that you or a loved one has. (And that’s also another really great reason to blog for us!)

Thank you again for your friendship and support!

Lisa Copen
____________________________________________
FACEBOOK CAUSE PAGE FOR II WEEK

http://www.InvisibleIllnessOnFacebook.com

TWITTER INFO:
@invisbleillwk (invisible illness week)
@lisajcopen (personal, illness ministry, ii week)

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Host Interview w/ Lisa at Your Blog For II Wk Blog Tour

Guess what? Lisa is doing a blog tour to help spread the word about Invisible Illness Week and we are opening up our calendar so book your blog today! The tour is July 27 – September 13th and Lisa hopes to help spread the word about Invisible Illness Week!

How does it work? You sign up for the day that you would like to post an interview with Lisa on your blog. Lisa has answered a variety of questions about NICIAW and you will receive a unique “article” to post—meaning each post may say something similar but the article in itself is unique.

(We are pointing that out because many blog tours provide all blogs with the same exact article, which can cause Google to see it as duplicate content. The wording of the article for your blog site will be completely unique, so Google will actually like it!)

We provide the article with hyperlinks already embedded into the code and graphics that you can upload. When you sign up you can also submit 2 questions of your own to Lisa that she will answer and email back to you to post with the interview.

You can write the intro paragraph, change the wording of the questions, make it sound “like you.”

We are excited to reach many blogs that represent a wide variety of medical professions, as well as illnesses. If you have to wonder if an illness “applies” – it does. And invisible illness can be anything from cancer to migraines, bipolar disorder to lupus, or fibromyalgia to autism.

Every blog host will receive a free copy of Lisa’s book, “Beyond Casseroles: 505 Ways to Encourage a Chronically Ill Friend.” It’s a paperback book but we will be giving away a free pdf digital version.

Thank you for your influence in the illness community by sharing your own experiences as well as bringing people together.

Once your date is confirmed we will:

• Post your participation on our Twitter accounts, Facebook, My Space, etc.
• The day your blog posts we will post it on our Twitter as well.
  We will do a Twitter post of any blog hosts who have a Twitter account
• It will be added to our mass calendar for II Week
• The schedule will be announced via a press release at SBWire.com where it will also hit Google News. The schedule will also be posted on all of our social networks, Invisible Illness Week web site, illnesstwitters.ning.com and more.

We are excited to let people discover how many spectacular health, illness and medical bloggers are out there.

If you are interested in hosting, please click here to sign up ASAP to grab your preferred slot!

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II WK Hosts Ground Rounds 8/18

We are so excited and honored to host Grand Rounds 8/18/2009.

In case you have not yet heard of Grand Rounds, it’s a blog carnival that’s hosted on a different blog site each week. The host chooses a theme and links to medically or health/illness-oriented blogs posts that are submitted for the theme.

It’s always very informative and usually entertaining too. The hosts do a great job of keeping it interesting, whatever the topic!

Our theme? Invisible Chronic Illness, of course!

We are looking for all kinds of posts that have anything to do with invisible illness or hidden disabilities from both patients and medical professionals, as well as medical students, scientists, caregivers, counselors, social workers, or anyone who has had an “invisible illness” experience.

Here are some ideas:

• Are you a medical professional? Do you feel you understand invisible chronic illness? Do you have a family member who has an ICI who has changed how your understanding of patients’ experiences?
• Do you tend to treat patients who lack deformities, seizures, shakes, or other noticible physical ailments different even when you try not to?
• Are you a patient who has had an an experience– good or bad –with a doctor and his or her understanding about invisible disease?
• Do you believe men are treated differently who have conditions such as fibromyalgia which have been labeled a “woman’s disease”?
• What is a patient’s perspective of invisible illness, the emotions, the doubts people have, the lack of understanding about amount of chronic pain?
• Are you the friend of someone with an invisible illness? How has your friend communicated how he or she is feeling, even when looking fine? What changes have you made to accommodate his or her limitations, even though no one else may have known they were needed or necessary?
• “But you look so good!” If an ill patient doesn’t want to be told she looks good, what should she want to look like?
• When your illness goes from invisible to visible? Is the grass greener on the other side?
• How has Web 2.0 is changing awareness about invisible illnesses? A lot of patients are using social networking tools to spread the word about their disease/causes.
• How can technology, such as illness software for an iphone or using Twitter for pain diaries change how medical professional understanding the hour-to-hour living with an ICI?
• Are you the parent of a child with an invisible illness? How do you (or do you) explain an invisible condition (like autism or sensory processing disorder) when people say your child just needs to be disciplined more?
• What is invisible illness (yes, things like depression, panic disorder, etc. do count!) Share your experience with living with or treating patients, who have an invisible condition they must cope with that the average person doesn’t understand.
• Are you a caregiver to someone with an ICI? A spouse? How have you grown over time in better understanding ICI?

Your topic doesn’t need to be on the lis, this is just a place to start for ideas. We look forward to your submission, due 8/16/09 (but the sooner the better please!).

Rules:

• One entry per blogger
• Recent posts between 400 and 1000 words are preferred
• Posts are to be written for a general audience

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20 Things Not to Say to an Ill Person

People have good intentions when they say things to someone with an illness, but it comes out all wrong. #iiwk10

Join us for 20 tips in 20 days on what NOT to say to someone who is ill – Please RT! #iiwk10

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#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #1 – You look so good today! – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #2 – You just need to get out of the house more – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #3 – If you stop thinking about it, the pain will go away – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #4 – You should just pray harder – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #5 – You must not want to get better if you won’t try this – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #6 – When I was your age I didn’t have the luxury of being sick – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #7 – You’re sick again?? – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #8 – I wish I could just sit around all day – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #9 – No pain, no gain! – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #10 – I’d be sick too if I saw doctors as much as you do – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #11 – I have this juice that is working wonders… – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #12 – You must still have sin in your life – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #13 – If you got a job you’d have something else to think about – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #14 – Your illness is caused by stress – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #15 – You can’t be in that much pain. Maybe you just want attention – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #16 – What have you done to make God so mad at you? – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #17 – There are easier ways to get attention – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #18 – It’s not good for your kids to always hear you whining – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #19 – When are you going to get rid of that cane? – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

#iiwk10-Things NOT to say to an ill person #20 – I’m so glad to see you out and about feeling all better – see more http://ow.ly/eYpo

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