Marta Rode wants you to wear your pyjamas on Feb. 29, whether it’s to work or school, out for a walk or to the grocery store. Wherever you go, she wants you to be in your coziest sleepwear to help raise awareness about autoimmune diseases.

“When I picked pyjama day, I was thinking of Movember. I figure, if people can wear those horrible moustaches for a month, people can wear their PJs for a day,” she said with a laugh.

Two years ago, Rode was diagnosed with Wegener’s granulomatosis, a rare autoimmune disease that affects one in 40,000 people.

Wegener’s is incurable and life-threatening and requires long-term immunosuppression – weakening of the immune system – through the use of powerful medication or chemotherapy.

For Rode, it all started with the popping of her ears on her way up to Marmot Basin, something that could happen to anyone, but Rode’s ears never “unpopped.”

After a few weeks she went to the doctor and was given antibiotics. But they didn’t help, nor did the second bout or third bout, or having tubes put in her ears. And at that point she was suffering from incredible, debilitating pain.

Rode, whose daughter at the time was only three years old, then began losing weight. She began having problems walking, eating, drinking and even breathing. 

It took months before she was correctly diagnosed with Wegener’s, having first been told it was stage-two lung cancer.

Since being accurately diagnosed, Rode has made it her mission to raise awareness, not only about her own disease, but about all autoimmune diseases, of which there are about 150.

And so she’s launching Pyjama Day to coincide with Rare Disease Day, since many autoimmune diseases fall under the umbrella of rare diseases.

Rode said she chose pyjamas because so many people with autoimmune diseases spend days, weeks, months and even years at home in their pyjamas, while their bodies fight against them.

According to the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, one in five people have an autoimmune disease. They range from arthritis to lupus to Wegener’s to hypothyroidism. 

“There’s tons of us,” said Rode. “If it’s one in five, it guarantees you know someone with an autoimmune disease.” 

Although in many cases, you might not know that you do, she said. That’s because many people with autoimmune diseases look normal on the outside, but on the inside, their immune system is attacking the very cells that it is meant to protect.

Rode admits that although three of her family members have autoimmune diseases – her mom has fibromyalgia, her dad has lupus and her sister has psoriatic arthritis – she didn’t know much about them until she was diagnosed.

Then she started researching, writing a blog, presenting at schools – including the University of Alberta – and surveying other people with Wegener’s. 

And now, all of her efforts are going toward finding a common thread that will help doctors begin to treat the diseases, themselves, rather than just the symptoms.

Pyjama Day will be Feb. 29. Everyone is encouraged to wear their pyjamas. They’re also invited to join the pyjama run in the morning and the pyjama fashion show at the activity centre in the evening.

Rode said already she’s had tremendous support from the community, including a number of businesses offering sleepwear for the fashion show.

“What I think is going to be cool is five years from now when something big happens with this, we can say it started here, in our town.”

Jasper’s not the only community taking part either. There are also events in the United States and the United Kingdom that have sprouted from Rode’s original idea.

And that’s exactly what she wants.

“I just want to empower people,” she said. “I want to get people on board and spreading it.”

To learn more about autoimmune diseases or Rode’s mission to find a common thread, visit www.findthecommonthread.com.