Narrative Poem

She  always stands there and smiles

No matter how bad the pain

It could go on for miles

The red on her arms like a stain

She never lets us know

Afraid and ashamed

She never lets it show

She’ll never be exactly the same

She stands there being brave

The smile never leaves her face

She just wants to be saved

From the pain that makes her world a bitter, dark place

I wish I could help her

Take away the pain

But it was too late to help her

The disease already ran through her veins

Why won’t she tell us?

We hear her cry at night

She just tells us to hush

Will she ever be alright?

She gets mad too easy

It makes her cry

Her life used to be free and breezy

What did she do to deserve this? Why?

She prays for mercy

Every single night

Hearing her in pain kills me

I just want it all to be alright

She walks in the church

Hearing the sound

What she had searched

Had finally been found

She becomes better

Not in as much pain

She believes it is all going to be better

Hoping everything has changed

Days go by

And she is still alright

Oh, God, why?

Here begins another fight

She thought it was over

Thought the pain was all gone

She was such a strong believer

Now she feels so alone

She prayed and prayed

Why does she have to suffer so

It’s not a game she played

She just wanted the pain to go

---

Research Memo

Megan Byard

Ms. McKoy

English II

21 February 2013

Dealing Lupus: Fighting an autoimmune disease

Hypothesis: How many people know about Lupus? Does anyone even know what Lupus is? I believe that not many people know about Lupus at all. I believe teenagers, especially, don’t know anything about Lupus. So how many people really know about Lupus and how can we raise awareness about it?

Context: My targeted audience was people in their early teens to about their mid-twenties. I chose these respondents to prove my hypothesis and how not many younger people know about Lupus. I discovered in my pilot testing that my hypothesis was correct. My results are reliable and valid. I know this because when people where taking the survey, they were not asking other people questions about what Lupus was. No my survey was not skewed or biased.

Results:

Age	14-19 (22 participants)	20-25 (0 participants)	26-30 (2 participants)	31-36 (0 participants)	37+ (1 participant)
Gender	Male (3 participants)	Female (22 participants)
Race	Caucasian (18 participants)	African American (2 participants)	Asian (1 participant)	Hispanic (3 participants)	Other (1 participant)
Do you know what Lupus is?	Yes (4 participants)	No (13 participants)	Somewhat (8 participants)
What is it?	Disease (4 participants)	I thought it was a kind of depression or mental disease that also affects the body. (1 participant)	A disease that affects the immune system and damages tissue. (1 participant)	Autoimmune disease. (2 participants)
Do you, or someone you know, have Lupus?	Yes (7 participants)	No (10 participants)	I’m not sure (8 participants)
If so, who?	Friend (2 participants)	Man from church (1 participant)	Client (1 participant)	Mother (2 participants)	Themselves (1 participant)
How were they affected?	Death (2 participants)	In-and-out of the hospital (1 participant)	Always cold, purple hands (1 participant)	Rash and body weakness (1 participant)	N/A (1 participant)
How important do you think Lupus is on a scale of 1-10?	1 (1)                        2 (0)	3  (0)                              4 (1)	5  (6)                                6 (2)	7   (5)                              8 (3)	9  (1)                            10 (6)
Who do you think is more likely to have Lupus?	Men (4 participants)	Women (21 participants)

 

Conclusion: When I was preforming my survey and placing the results into the chart above, I learned that my hypothesis was indeed correct! I learned that 12/25 participants know or have some minimal idea of what Lupus is and how people who have it are affected. 13/25 people, which is obviously more than 12/25 people, is the amount of participants that have no clue what lupus is and they were all in the 14-19 age range.

Survey Results

Survey Results

Age	14-19 (22 participants)	20-25 (0 participants)	26-30 (2 participants)	31-36 (0 participants)	37+ (1 participant)
Gender	Male (3 participants)	Female (22 participants)
Race	Caucasian (18 participants)	African American (2 participants)	Asian (1 participant)	Hispanic (3 participants)	Other (1 participant)
Do you know what Lupus is?	Yes (4 participants)	No (13 participants)	Somewhat (8 participants)
What is it?	Disease (4 participants)	I thought it was a kind of depression or mental disease that also affects the body. (1 participant)	A disease that affects the immune system and damages tissue. (1 participant)	Autoimmune disease. (2 participants)
Do you, or someone you know, have Lupus?	Yes (7 participants)	No (10 participants)	I’m not sure (8 participants)
If so, who?	Friend (2 participants)	Man from church (1 participant)	Client (1 participant)	Mother (2 participants)	Themselves (1 participant)
How were they affected?	Death (2 participants)	In-and-out of the hospital (1 participant)	Always cold, purple hands (1 participant)	Rash and body weakness (1 participant)	N/A (1 participant)
How important do you think Lupus is on a scale of 1-10?	1 (1)                        2 (0)	3  (0)                              4 (1)	5  (6)                                6 (2)	7   (5)                              8 (3)	9  (1)                            10 (6)
Who do you think is more likely to have Lupus?	Men (4 participants)	Women (21 participants)