When she was 21, Bangor Daily News colleague Jen Lynds of our Houlton bureau was diagnosed with lupus.

According to the Lupus Foundation of America Web site, “Lupus is a widespread and chronic autoimmune disease that, for unknown reasons, causes the immune system to attack the body’s own tissue and organs, including the joints, kidneys, heart, lungs, brain, blood, or skin.

“The immune system normally protects the body against viruses, bacteria and other foreign materials. In an autoimmune disease like lupus, the immune system loses its ability to tell the difference between foreign substances and its own cells and tissue. The immune system then makes antibodies directed against ‘self.'”

The diagnosis when she was in college “greatly affected” her life, Lynds said. “When you’re a young adult, you expect to have a lot of energy, but lupus really zaps your energy” and leaves you fatigued.

To make matters worse, she found it “a struggle to get health insurance,” Lynds said.

“I lived without it for four years. Normally, when you think about not being able to afford health insurance, you think of the elderly, but it’s been a big trial for me because I needed to be on medication to control [the lupus] at an early age.”

Fortunately, Lynds is now covered by her husband’s health policy, but she is also more acutely aware of others who are uninsured or underinsured.

Today, the 27-year-old is “doing well, and making sure to exercise to keep my bone strength,” she said.

“I really think it’s been harder on my family than on me,” and that’s especially true of her mother, who is a nurse.

“No one in my family ever had it, and it just came out of nowhere,” Lynds said.

As a college student, Lynds discovered many people had never heard of lupus and that “early on at college a lot of people thought it was contagious.”

Back home, not many people were aware of the disease, either, but because of those who know and love her, all that has changed.

“People up here understand it now,” Lynds said.

Her mother, Wendy Lynds of Littleton, wrote a letter to the editor of the Houlton Pioneer Times noting that October was Lupus Awareness Month and explaining the disease and its treatment.

And Sheila Cowperthwaite of Littleton wrote me that fellow resident Heather Campbell “has purchased 250 Lupus Awareness car magnets to show love and support for her friend.”

People in the area can purchase one for $3 “and help to show support for Jen,” Cowperthwaite wrote.

In her letter to the Pioneer Times, Wendy Lynds wrote that while treatment for lupus has improved in the last few decades, there is no cure.

“Scientists and researchers need support to look for a cure, so I urge you to contact state and federal representatives to let them know,” Lynds wrote.

To order your Lupus Awareness car magnet, call Campbell at 538-0953.

If you’re taking youngsters to the library this week, you might look for the latest Lupine Award-winning children’s book, “The Water Gift and the Pig of the Pig,” written by Maine native and Iowa resident Jacqueline Briggs Martin.

Central Maine Power Co. donated copies of the book to more than 600 public, private and parochial school and public libraries in its service territory.

The Lupine Award is presented by the Youth Services Section of the Maine State Library Association in recognition of an outstanding contribution to children’s literature of Maine.

According to her Web site, many of Martin’s books are based on her experiences growing up on a Maine farm.

Word has been received from jeweler-gemologist Jim Vose of Lincoln that “the largest, documented, faceted gemstone ever cut in the state of Maine” has been donated to the Maine State Museum in Augusta.

The property of late Lincoln resident Walter Goding, the brown piece of smoky quartz from the Consolidated Quarry in Topsham, is 462.40 carats in weight.

According to an October NEWS story, it is not only the largest Maine gemstone but also the second-largest found in New England and, quite possibly, the largest smoky quartz in North America.

Vose wrote that Goding’s children were “honoring their father’s wishes” by donating the gemstone to the permanent mineral exhibit at the museum, thus ensuring that it would remain in its state of origin.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.