Today is the first day of the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors annual Words Matter blog challenge. Each day, bloggers write on a specific topic. Today’s topic:

Is there a word that has changed, or could change your life? What is it, and what difference would it make?

My answer: Cure.

Maybe I’m jaded, but I have a strong suspicion that pharmaceutical companies aren’t interested in finding cures for diseases. They are interested in coming up with expensive treatments that fall short of putting people with chronic illnesses into remission.

I was first diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis about 10 years ago. Since then, I’ve been on four biologic drugs, some of the most expensive on the market. They cost about $2,000 a month. When I was on Rituxan, made by Biogen, which had revenues of about $4 billion from the sale of the drug in 2010. Why would they find a cure when there’s that much money in ongoing treatment? And that’s just one of the many expensive drugs on the market that treat RA.

If they took that money and used it to find a cure, I’d pay 10 years worth of any biologic drug for the pleasure of being symptom free.

Currently, the combination of drugs I’m taking has resulted in an elevated blood pressure. I’m now off two of my everyday meds and two of those I take occasionally for breakthrough pain. On a good day with all my drugs, my up time is limited, my sleep is interrupted, and I have to limit my exertion or plan on a day in bed to recover. A cure? It would mean the ability to do all the things I have to do and maybe some of what I want to do.

My to do list has increased over the last 10 years. The house has suffered, my career has stalled, and the writing I want to do for myself is at the bottom of my list, along with all the movies I want to see and books I want to read. Well, the last one isn’t really true. I can read in bed when I’m not sleeping. All of my available energy has gone toward parenting my child and doing what I can to earn a living.

To say the word “cure” out loud paints pictures in my mind of the person I used to be and the person I still have hopes of becoming again. I know there are those who would say I should learn to be serene in my current situation. There are, indeed, days when getting up, working out, flossing and moisturizing are the things that make a good enough day. And I work very hard not to be angry and miserable while still keeping my Jewish angsty edge. But I’m not satisfied with imperfect treatments to a disease that about 1 percent of the adult population of the United States have. I want a cure and I wish the monetary might of Big Pharma would get behind that.

Probably wishful thinking.