Sarco-what?

Sarcoidosis...what's that? I think it would irritate me if it wasn't my reaction when the doctor told me that this was the illness that had me gasping for breath just from a simple flight up the stairs. At 19. He told me that I would likely be on and off steroids for life and I would probably get worse, but frankly, I was just glad it wasn't cancer.

Two years later and I'm blind in one eye, sometimes my entire body just aches and there's a good chance I'll fall asleep at three in the afternoon. But I'm looking great! I think that's about the most frustrating part of sarc (as we in the know call it), even though I feel 21 going on 80, I don't get cut any slack.

I went to have a meeting with the chairperson of my course in college to explain how sarcoidosis was impacting on my academic work. She had never heard of it before and asked me to explain it. The problem is that I don't know how to explain it. I either go into a detailed explanation with a lot of medical jargon their eyes glaze over, or I try to describe what ends up sounding like vague and minor side-affects. I don't think I convinced her, she made a crack about moving to New Zealand for the climate?!