3,564 Reasons You’re Incredible

You did it.  You helped our team hit our fundraising target for the 2018 MDA Muscle Walk.  Team Greater Than Gravity collected $3564 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.  YOU DID THIS.

Your dollars are possibly sending several kids to summer camp.  Perhaps those dollars are helping fund a pharmaceutical lab assistant working toward a treatment, or maybe they’re helping a family fund a wheelchair or ventilator for their child.  I don’t get to direct precisely where the funds land, but I know that each and every dollar is well spent.

A dad, a mom, and I were invited to speak before the walk began Sunday, and you’d have to be some kind of stoic not to have a tear in your eye listening to those two parents speak about their children–how they knew something was wrong, and how long it took to determine just what that something was.  How it took years of effort and investigation to find the right medical professional to steer them toward, and then settle on that MD diagnosis–it was story not entirely unlike ours–MD is sneaky, and its variations so disparate.  There are some “common” or more “identifiable” subtypes, and there are also a slew of other subtypes not so clearly evident.  You know something isn’t quite right, but your “what is wrong?” compass doesn’t settle due north.

I didn’t share much of our story on the microphone because my son is fourteen, and it was horror enough to him that I was even up there.  Before I agreed to speak, I talked with my son, asking him if he would be OK with me up there and he agreed so long as I didn’t point him out or betray any privacy (or look at him while I was talking, or, or, or. . .), and out of respect for him, I did not say too much.  It got me to thinking that the lifespan of this blog was maybe nearing its sunset.  I probably wonder something like that every time I hit “publish” to be honest.  Writing these days is less about my boy with MD and more about my four-legged boy with a penis infection (the dog). My life!

I’m happy I can do the walk, raising awareness and money for an honorable cause, but I am glad it’s over.  I feel physically beat, and NOT because the walk was physically demanding.  I’m tired.  It’s an honor, an exhausting honor, to help support the MDA, but I think now I need a nap.  Does that sound lame?  Ungrateful?  Please know that it’s not ungrateful.  I can live with lame.  I’m a total weirdo on walk day, a fact to which anyone at the walk can attest.  Sorry guys.

This team is comprised of family members and friends I see routinely, friends from high school, work friends and colleagues who quietly surprise the hell out of me with their support here.  My crew contains anonymous donors, a former boss, a writer I’ve met blogging, parents of my son’s friends, my Barenaked Ladies ladies, and people I’ve never even met! I know you don’t donate to our team to read your name here in my goofball blog, but I would be remiss in not posting an honor roll.  It is truly my honor to know you, and that is true even if we haven’t met in real life.  Thank you.  There are a million organizations you could choose to lend your support, and somehow, when I ask, you choose mine.  There are no words to express what that means.

Ann Calverley, Sean Carlin, Bridget Panlener, Greg Amborn, Beth Sandmire, PJ Early, Alicia Kraucunas, Terry Radtke, Ginger Stapp, Amy Van Ells, Sue Wacker, Diane Piedt, Nicole Garza, Shelly Weisse, Lori Lepak, Patti Bohlman, Laurie Stilin, Jill Holmes, Stacy Skenandore, Chelsea Laub, Heidi Britz, Nikki Leininger, Michelle Sjoblom, John Weir, Bek Szypula, Rose Mary Walecki, Rhonda Weir, Bob Kosky, Amy Behrendt, Rene Damask, Gwen Evseichik, Jenna Stoll, Sally Warkaske, Janice Schwind, Jennifer Sanders, Steve Inman, Charlie Pozza, Valerie Hoehnke, Barb Berman, Kathy Gregorski, Maggie Palutsis, Julie Freyre, Chantal Van Uytfanck, Anonymous donors, Lisa Lien, Tracy Klement, Julie Smith, Heather Koll, Patti Sereno, Christine Carey, Shelly Boutet, Jodi Liebelt, Rebecca Halsey-Schmidt, Jane Mlenar, Ula Julien, Ann Kukowski, Mike Zyniecki, Anne & Bob Kosky, Todd Condroski, and Michele Nixon–you are the best of all the people ever.

I told the walk participants that the list of things I’d rather do than ask for money is long.  Really, really long.  And then I said that while I hated it, I’d continue to do it so that my child and others with muscle disease get the chance to go to camp, the chance not to be the only one.  I promised to continue showing up because showing up is the first step.  Thank you for showing up with me.

If you ever wonder if you are making a difference?  You are.