Cocktails For a Cause fundraiser:

Cocktails For a Cause

Raising money, raising awareness, and raising a glass (or two)

to help fight kidney disease. Drink sales will be generously

donated to a local transplant recipient, and the Maine Transplant Center.

Please join us at the Falmouth Sea Grill

on Saturday evening, April 14th from 5-7pm

               


















* Cash bar
                            


Well we did it!!! The date is set and the event is on. The event as you can see will be a cocktail hour at the Falmouth Sea grill on Saturday the 14th starting at 5pm. All you have to do is show up and enjoy a drink or two. Donations are made in the form of your drink purchase. You buy the drink, we donate the money. I hope to see you all there, and don't forget to forward this to everyone you know. For directions please visit www.thefalmouthseagrill.com

Fundraising for dummies

I love control, but who doesn't right?
Saying that having no control is a problem for me would be huge understatement. Its just not in my nature to lay down and take the cards that have been handed to me. If I don't like what I get, I throw it back.
Dealing with my moms kidney disease diagnosis was no different. But once you or your love one has changed diets, started the donor process, or found someone willing to, what more can be done? Well....... LOTS!!!

It looks like my mom could receive a kidney relatively soon (provided my sisters tests come back negative). Like all who receive a transplant she can look forward to paying the exorbitant fees that accompany such a procedure. Insurance will cover the transplant, and most of the immunosuppressant medication she will have to take for the rest of her life, but they will not cover all of those drug costs.

How do you bridge the gap? After all this is no minor expense. Ahhhhh....the point of this blog..... Fundraising!!!! Like all things worth doing in life, this too takes effort.

Its been a long time since I've been in school, and my job doesn't require any letter/proposal writing skills of any type, so I was about as rusty a WWII tank left in the pacific (that's really rusty). So I started where everything starts these days... on line, and it all came flooding back to me.

• First, decide what kind of fundraiser you want to have (this is the easy part), a dance, a walk/run, spaghetti dinner, bake sale, raffle, or like me, a cocktail party. Not so hard.
• Now you need to decide where you would like to hold your event, and when.
• Then how will you advertise the event? A little more difficult, but easy enough.

Next comes the real fun. Writing a proposal, and like I said, unless you do this with some regularity (which I do not), it may be something of a hurtle.

• step 1: Introduction, a quick story to grab at the heart strings and pull them in
• step 2: Why them? What are they going to get out of this? After all, for most people/business, unless they are personally affected or will gain something they usually wont get involved. Sad but true, I speak from my recent experiences.
• step 3: How are you going to make it easy for them to help
• step 4: Ending

Sounds pretty simple, and for some more practiced people I'm sure it would be, but this took me two months. Two months of outlining, writing, refining, tweaking, finessing, cramming in, scratching out, ripping out, re-writing, begging it to write itself (yup.. I talked to my paper), and finally.....sweet Jesus..... I was finished!!!
Writing that is.... advertising was is a whole other topic. For that I called and e-mailed every newspaper and radio station I could. Most radio stations never responded, but a few did. The newspapers I had better luck with, but when you're willing pay for an advertisement of course they will respond. I was able to get the Sun Journal to do an article, and I'm pretty happy with that. I will also print up fliers and hand them out all over Portland, Falmouth, Poland, and any other town I feel like littering. I will also use this wonderful new thing called social networking, if any of you have heard of it please help me spread the word. I'll be posting the info. (date/time/place) shortly.
When I was all done I had my proposal printed out and took it around to all the local restaurants, asked nicely to see the owner/manager, and handed over all my hard work. I'm happy to say it paid off too. We are just starting to discuss details so...more on that later......

Moving forward

We are finally moving forward! After the slow, but necessary process of making sure my sister and I were able donors, the decision needed to be made as to who would be moving forward. Since both my sister and I are more than willing to be a donor, we made the decision as a family. My sister will go though the testing first. If for any reason she is not able to continue, I will then continue being tested further. 

My sister has a meeting with the entire transplant team next Wednesday morning, and in the afternoon she will have an x-ray of her kidneys. This will be the first in a long line of testing to be done over the next month, and we will be sure to keep everyone up to date on the progress. We hope now that a decision has been made, and the responsibility of completing the testing is in our hands, we will move through this faze swiftly and have a transplant happening soon!!
Feeling really good today :)

Baking Soda its not just for cooking anymore

BAKING SODA, this brilliant, remarkable, outstanding, multi-tasking chemical composition is the Chuck Norris of the molecular world.  The more I read about this stuff the more I love it! I used to think it was only good for making your baking goods light and fluffy, and torturing children with when you ran out of toothpaste (stuff tastes like..well we all know what it tastes like), but it will whiten those not so pearly whites, and freshen even the most atrocious breath. So what else will this stuff do? What doesn't it do!

It will clean the heck out of your grout, take the grease off an oven, polish chrome, silver, & stainless steel, dry clean upholstery & carpets, help sooth burns & stings of all kinds, remove crayon. Wipe it on your windshield or windows to make them repel water,  put out  small fires (unless you have a dump truck full, then a bigger fire too), make a volcano, rocket, or any number of other fun science projects, turn it into clay, add it to water and keep flowers longer, clean veggies with it, repel pests from the garden with it. It will deodorize just about anything, your house, your cloths, you (for all those w/ gas this is a great product). It can soften skin, just add a cup to the bath.
It can be used to exfoliate, giving your face that much needed peel (no chemicals necessary), unfortunately it will not turn back the cruel hands of time, and no amount of exfoliating is ever going to scrub the ugly off, but every bit helps. This stuff has been used as an antiseptic, anti fungal, and antacid for years, so why am I waxing all poetic about it here? Well because in addition to all those other admirable uses, it turns out it may also stall our kidney disease, shrink kidney stones (or stop us from developing them all together), and decrease our chances of ever developing kidney disease in the first place.
 
 You heard me, Baking Soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate has been shown to stall the progression of kidney disease (in some to almost a normal level) in a study done in Great Brittan. It was also shown to help people suffering from kidney stones and several different types of cancer as well. This may not be a cure, but it sure is an encouraging step in the right direction. Don't just take my word for it though, here are some links to the study, and ask your doctor:

 http://sodiumbicarbonate.imva.info/ , http://www.m.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/sodium-bicarbonate-baking-soda-for-kidney-stones , http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/07July/Pages/Bakingsodaforkidneypatients.aspx , http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070430094018.htm , http://www.ehow.com/how_5616960_drink-bicarbonate-soda-health.html

So when life gives you lemons, add baking soda and cure what ails you, because physics is bound by the laws of Chuck Norris.
Also........
Chuck Norris kills 99% of all bacteria...he leaves 1% as a warning.

These jokes are addicting when you have a dry sense of humor like me, sorry.

Seeing green

Ever notice how when something is brought to your attention, that something starts popping up all over? Like when you buy a new car.  Now, before you get this car you would be hard pressed to spot one. Even at the car lot they seemed to only stock a select few, always in lime green or Avon pink. However, buy one......and they multiply. On the road, there everywhere. Pull into a parking lot, and its pact full of them. Almost like your emitting a sent, attracting them to you like male cats to a female in heat, your surrounded. Think you found a unique ______. Nope, every one's got one, I've got two. You get the picture.

 Why does this happen? Is it that once you have something new, or hear a new word, your more in tune to it, and there for notice it. Is it the marketing genius of  stores everywhere that just make us all want the same things at the same time. Probably both, but it's been happening to me ever since my mom found out she needed a transplant. I'm seeing green everywhere (the ribbon color for kidney disease, everyone has a ribbon now). I have read two articles on organ donation in different papers. I saw a story about a girl who received a transplant, on the TODAY show. I've heard a few stories  about organ donations on NPR, and even a couple adds for kidneycars on there as well.

Though my mom has always monitored her kidney function, I only recall being slightly aware of her doing so. I cant really remember ever hearing very much about organ donation. It has always been there, just more as a peripheral issue. I am an organ donor, and have the mark on my license to prove it. I even donated a few cars to the kidney foundation at my moms urging ( I got more as a tax deduction than it would have been worth in a sale).  DONATE YOUR CAR www.kidneycars.com .

I'm sure the topic had been mentioned on t.v., and written about in newspaper articles numerous times, but for what ever reason it just never took hold of my attention. Now  I am seeing and hearing organ donation everywhere. The other day I even saw a flier up at work for the Great Lost Bear best beer competition that said we need your liver. Sure.... they meant for drinking, but that's not what I read. I read donate your organs (I may have edited it  little too). And now "going green" has taken on a whole new meaning. Even recycling logos I now see as donation logos. So far I have resisted the urge to tweak these slightly, and add my own changes (graffiti not really being my thing, yet) My version looks something like this.

 REUSE: an organ save a life
 REDUCE: the # of lives lost
 RECYCLE: the gift of a healthy organ
 


So the next time you see some add for recycling, or going green, think about organ donation. You'll be surprised how well the two campaigns juxtapose. I hope now that you have read this blog, you too will start seeing green, and think, ORGAN DONATION as well. Hey why bury what someone else can reuse right? Now.... do I mean organs, or am I talking trash.

Kind of morbid, but I thought some what fitting  :0)

YES!!!

YES....Who doesn't love to hear this word? Well, I can think of a few things I don't want this word accompanying.  Like maybe... yes, the boat is sinking and we need to abandon ship. Also, oh yah.... those are bed bugs. Or, yup...that loud noise you heard was your muffler falling off.  O.k., a lot of times I don't want to hear the word yes, but today it was music to my ears. Yes was the word from the transplant committee!! My mom will be able to receive a kidney transplant as soon as they have a compatible donor. Who will that be? Well, we don't yet know. My sister and I have both started the testing. We were both a genetic match (no surprise there), however my sister displayed some hematuria. She will need two more urine samples to come back negative in order for her to continue. My samples have shown above average kidney function (first time being above average anything.. I'll take it) and no sign of hematuria. Since there is such a strong history of kidney disease in our family the committee wants to be extra cautious and double up on some of the tests, so I will be tested again. Better safe than sorry.

On another note, earlier this morning I sent an up-date e-mail to the guys on the Free Beer and Hot Wings show telling them the good news. For those of you who don't know here is a quick re-cap. They are a nationally syndicated radio show. Back in November, because of a topic they were discussing, I sent in an e-mail about my mom needing a kidney. They read it on air which touched off an avalanche of responses from people willing to donate a kidney to my mom. Hard to believe a stranger would be so selfless. Obviously fantastic news for us, since we aren't sure if  the clinic will allow my sister or I to donate. Its nice to know we have options. They have been following the story ever since. Mentioning the story, and bring the topic of organ donation to their viewers attention. This morning was no different. After I sent the update they read it on air, hopefully reaching all those who came forward, and maybe inspiring even more people to consider donating a kidney to others in need (of whom there is no shortage). Any way I just wanted to say THANK YOU AGAIN FREE BEER, HOT WINGS, AND ERIC ZANE.

Still waiting

Yesterday my moms case was presented to the board at the hospital for review. It is their job to decide if my mom can receive a transplant. The last visit we had at the clinic her coordinator seemed very optimistic that she was a good candidate, so there is that. However, the wait is killing me!!! Negative thoughts swirl around in my head, the what ifs start to get the better of me. Then I try to counter with my more reasonable, positive side. I've called twice already, and left messages. I'm fighting the urge to call again, instead I sit and wait. I know they will call as soon as they know something and have a chance, but would they call already.