Sarcoidosis

Sarcoidosis is a disorder of the immune system. It is a chronic, benign disease which is most often found in women and African-Americans. In sarcoidosis, a person's lymph system turns on and sends out lymphocytes. Lymphocytes are little dudes that look for illness or infection in the body. Not finding anything to attack, the lymphocytes gather together like clumps of grapes in any soft tissue organ in the body. While most common in the lungs, they can also effect the liver, spleen, sinuses, etc.

No one knows why the immune system turns on when there is nothing wrong. There may be a different reason for every case. It is suspected that something airborne in the person's environment has caused the immune system reaction. It is also suspected that sometimes, the immune systems comes on for a good reason, fixes the problem, and then just never turns off. I hear that many of the workers from Ground Zero have ended up with sarcoidosis.

Although the disease never goes away, it rarely kills anyone. Treatment with steroids is usually enough to shrink the nodules and send the sarcoidosis into remission. In some cases, the patient never has trouble with the disease again. In other cases, future flareups require additional rounds of steroids.

At any rate, it is not lung cancer. Thank God. Steve Ward made me a shirt when this was all over. It was a plain white sweatshirt with one word printed on it:

Super-cali-fragilistic-expe-sarcoidosis

That says it all.

Its a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.