PHOENIX, AZ – On the first of the month Katie Brunswick posted on her Facebook page that she was “giving up Facebook” for the month to raise awareness for her un-diagnosed generalized pain disease. Katie’s disease consists of weight gain, increased lethargy, and generalized non-specific, non-malignant, and non-surgical pain. Her negative workup to date has involved 22 subspecialties, over 130 health care providers, 74 radiologic studies, and 935 laboratory tests.
Friends of Katie were intially shocked: “I don’t know how she will do it. She shares 6-7 stories a day and we never miss what she is making for dinner or what symptoms she is currently having.”
Ironically Katie’s pause on Facebook is decreasing the amount of exposure her disease is getting because she was the only one spreading the word.
To make matters worse, a possible cure came across her timeline Wednesday from a physician in New Zealand, but she wasn’t able to see it. Her friend Rebecca, who shared the post, told reporters: “I hope I remember to share it with her again in a month, I totally forgot she gave up Facebook.”
When Rebecca was asked if she could just call Katie on the phone or even email her the medical post, Rebecca said, “Oh, I didn’t even think of doing that.”
