My Book is Recommended by the Lupus Foundation of America

Wow! I waddled out to the mailbox yesterday and pulled out my copy of Lupus Now, Spring Edition, and was leafing idly through it when what to my wondering eyes should appear but an ad about my book!
The text is as follows:

Diagnosis: Lupus- The Intimate Journal of a Lupus Patient (PublishAmerica Press, Baltimore 2005; paperback, 216 pp. $19.95) by Marilyn Celeste Morris. When the author was suddenly confronted with symptoms of joint pain and extreme fatigue, she undertook an intensive search to understand what eventually would be diagnosed as systemic lupus erythematosus. Throughout the pages of her intimate daily journal, she takes the reader on a journey from chronic joint pain, frustration, anger and grief for her former self, to her current state of remission. Far from being a list of complaints, the author's pages reveal her unexpected spiritual growth and gratitude for life itself. In addition to this book, the author has written fiction and a memoir.

I had sent 3 copies of my book to the LFA Publications Editor for review about three months ago and had almost forgotten, and yet there it was! Let me tell you folks who aren't writers trying to get your work(s) out to the public -- this little ad is worth its weight in gold! Not only in sales, but in awareness of the disease, if someone should happen upon it, hoping it might help explain their friend/wife/husband's disease because I do let it all hang out. All the griping, despair, depression, swearing -- yes, this little granny lady knows a lot of swear words -- and that was one reason I thought maybe the LFA wouldn't want to endorse it.

But I also shouldn't overlook the positive aspects of baring my soul with this book. It was risky, yes, to confess I went through this disease process kicking and screaming, blaming everybody including God for my distress, and for a woman like me who was raised by an authoritarian father to "not air dirty linen in public" it was a major step.

Oh, but I lost the train of thought, there for a minute. I was going to tell you about the positive aspect of writing this book and reliving every single minute of my progress. I did find an inner strength I didn't think I had.

Don't groan, here, this isn't going to be one of those mushy messages so many people love to pass around on the Internet, like the one I really, really hate, which concludes with the words kind of like, "If you love God, you will forward this to everybody you know." Now, I consider that Emotional Blackmail, and just to be perverse and tempt God's wrath, I hit the delete button. And I'm still here.....

Anyway, I did find a new appreciation for life itself and how little time we all have on this earth. Discovered there is no room for self-pity (well, maybe every once in a while, just for a few minutes -- after all, I'm not a saint) or resentment. I'm saying this from the perspective of having come through the roughest part of this disease, and in remission, but in re-reading my journal entries I can see that a tiny bit of acceptance beginning to take root, and I'm hoping readers of my book will be able to do that, too.

Someone who had just read about my lupus book emailed me to wish me well, and put a new spin on the old adage, "When life hands you lemons...." etc. His take on this saying says it even more succinctly than "make lemonade."

Okay, my new saying about what I've learned from this disease:

When life hands you lemons, ask for tequila. (Ole')