The Iron Angel

 Little did I know the path that this disease would take my family and me.  It now is as much a part of me as breathing, every day I have something to do that concerns hemochromatosis, whether it is answering email from patients, taking calls from family members, or talking to people I meet during my daily activities and letting them know about the disease.  For a while, I was so consumed with this type of activity that I did little else.  I had to make a concentrated effort to do other things, to allow myself some "personal time" to think about something else.  Because my mother died from hemochromatosis, I felt that working more intensively to save others, might relieve some of the guilt that I felt for being unable to save her.  Although reassured many times by many people, including many doctors, I still have held myself responsible for not being somehow able to save her, through medical breakthroughs, through prayer, through shear will power.  But, I failed.  And, so I continue on, trying to successfully help others, to save them, if they will let me.

It all started back in 1983, when my mother started her own medical journey, by herself, without telling my father or me about her "discovery".  It wasn't long though, until she confessed to us what was going on with her....that was the beginning of our "crash course" in medicine, hospitals, and lab tests.  What we would learn during this period in our lives would serve us many times over in the future, not only for our immediate family members, but also for others we would help in the future, people we never dreamed we would encounter or help.  Looking back, it is indeed surreal how all of this has taken place and evolved into what we do today.

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