tdtid
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 10276
posted
Within our N.H. online support group, which is consisting of several community Lyme support groups, we were asked if some of us could attend a Lyme event with our Governor.
We arrived at the State House by 3:15 and met up with others. At about 3:30 we went up to a large meeting room on the second floor. By about 3:50 Governor Lynch arrived. He had various groups waiting for us, although the Lyme group was, by far, the largest.
First group was only four people and they discussed Maple Syrup in NH.
We were next. There were probably about 20 of us there. We stood at one end of the room in a loose semi-circle and the Governor stood in front of us and asked a few questions. We were not an organized group, that is, we didn't have a speaker and in fact we were many people from different locations so there was no rehearsed script.
Most of us had never even met each other, but some of us had talked online.
The conversation actually flowed pretty well with discussions of many subjects including several in our group going from crippled to being there, to the poor testing available, to education programs some of us were conducting with the schools.
It was pointed out that Lyme Disease is costing the State money in lost productivity and that it is bad and getting worse. The Governor did ask one fairly insightful question inquiring on whether it was the people that needed education about Lyme or if it was the Doctors, to which we soundly said both with the Doctors being a large part of the problem.
I'm sure he gave us at least 15 minutes, which was beyond our allotted time. He did finally suggest that he needed to read the proclamation and move on and he proceeded to read a document declaring May as "Lyme Awareness Month" for our state.
I was very happy to hear, within the proclamation, many of the issues we'd discussed. It shows that someone, whomever wrote the proclamation, did some research and understood at least some of the issues.
He then proceeded to say goodbye and shook each of our hands.
Overall the meeting went well. I hope to find a copy of the proclamation online within a few days and was told each of us that attended would be getting a picture of our group with the Governor.
Other than phone calls and letters, this was the first time I've actually been on the "activist side" vs being the patient and it felt good.
We haven't had much luck in New Hampshire swaying our senators our direction, so I guess it felt good that the Governor would even take the time for us.
Cathy
-------------------- "To Dream The Impossible Dream" Man of La Mancha Posts: 2638 | From New Hampshire | Registered: Oct 2006
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posted
Congrats to you all on your meeting with the governor! That's a perfect May Lyme Awareness month event!
Posts: 13116 | From San Francisco | Registered: May 2006
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