disease

I'm a member of a few dystonia support groups on Yahoo Groups where people that have the condition share their stories and issues and what not. I've noticed several users call dystonia a disease. This started to offend me since I normally call it a condition but then I looked it up on dictionary.com.

A pathological condition of a body part, an organ, or a system resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms.

It's all in the verbiage I guess. Part of me wants to wear it like a badge on my sleeve, "I have a condition" and the other part of me just wants to fight it and get back to normal already. I had an aunt on Saturday suggest that I get those disability placards for the car. I wanted to yell at her that I'm not disabled, but it's true that I can't drive.

I called the Parkinson's Institute on Wednesday, my company is asking to submit a new disability certification since I've been rediagnosed with dystonia. At the very least, this place doesn't charge for it like my original doctor did.