Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Challenge Day 13: They Who Will Decide

Todays WEGO HAWMC prompt is another great idea that I know from past experience can get the creative juices flowing. Open a book to a random page and choose a phrase or sentence at random - instant title for your blog post! I grabbed Toni Morrison's a mercy from the coffee table next to me. I flipped through to a random spot and counted down to the 13th sentence, in honor of day 13 of this challenge, even though this will only be the 8th post I've participated in.The full line: "Widow who says sssst it is they who will decide." I haven't started this book yet, but that seems about like a typical Morrison line. (I say that with love and adoration for this author, who I studied in some depth in college.) I thought about going with "who says sssst" for the random and absurd quality, but those last four lines instantly got me thinking about a relevant topic for an MS-themed blog.

They who will decide. Who is the they in the future of MS? I know it's almost cruel to suggest that a simple decision is all it will take to ultimately cure this or any disease, and that's not what I'm trying to do. After all, it could be a fluke in a lab somewhere that leads to answers. But maybe it is, at least in part, that simple. Maybe we, as patients and activists, do need to decide to do something. To change the way this disease is studied, treated, talked about. I think most of us in this blogosphere have made just such a decision, and some people are working hard to get the under-utilized resource of the patient recognized. It's no accident that in my imaginative Wikipedia revision, I chose the heroes of the changing of MS is... to MS was... to be patients and bloggers.

They who will decide. There is something almost ominous and powerful in the phrase. Let's all decide to decide in the best ways we each know how, shall we?

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