I am so CONFUSED about this website and how to sign up or make donations! And this is not brain fog. Seems I have 2 pages where donations are.  One is a team page and the other is a personal page.  So whichever you donate, it goes to the same place.  One day I will understand this new computer stuff. 

(If you just want to donate, make a donation on my personal page. If you want to join me at the zoo, Register on my "Esta Jo" Team page and then make as self-donation to your own registration page, where $50+ will earn you a walk t-shirt and more incentives if donate more on your own page, which will be part of our "Esta Jo" team.)

You may or may not know that I have Sjogren’s Syndrome.  It is an autoimmune disease that has easily recognizable symptoms like dry mouth and dry eye. But other symptoms include joint and muscle pain, exhaustion, depression, acne, brain fog and many more in varying degrees of severity.  It is incurable but is treated by the infamous Hydroxychloroquine.  The only good thing about being diagnosed it that every one of my various illnesses fall under the umbrella of Sjogrens and I no longer feel like a hypochondriac.  

Sjogrens is a seriously under-diagnosed illness.  It is in same arthritis family as Scleroderma, Lupus, and Rheumatoid Arthritis.  Many people are diagnosed with these diseases concurrently with Sjogrens.  Due to the efforts of the Foundation and advancements in medicine, the diagnosis time is down from 13 years, to 7 years, to 3 years now.  It took my doctors about 25 years to diagnose me finally in 2014.

The Sjogrens Foundation supports awareness campaigns, medical research and patient support.  I lead a “local” support group by zoom that includes participants for all over the country.  

A $20 donation covers the cost of event and you can make a donation if you register.  But for my birthday, May 15, I will pay that fee for anyone who lets me know by email.