And now I'm an IBD Icon. But my faithful readers already knew I had iconic status, of course. Naturally. I didn't need a title to confirm my status, but a title is nice of course. Too bad my title didn't come with a tiara. But it did come with a trip to Vegas, so I suppose that will do as a nice substitute. (And I have the t-shirt to prove it!) Of course, if any of my faithful subjects want to send me a tiara, it wouldn't be refused.
This whole experience has just overwhelming. We spent last weekend in Las Vegas as part of the Rock n' Roll Marathon. The Crohn's and Colitis Foundation was the charity partner for this race and the runners participating in Team Challenge (CCFA's fundraising program) raised $4.5 million for research. On Saturday evening, we all attended the pasta dinner for the 1,300 runners who had trained for weeks and spent hours and hours raising money for research. I'm incredibly grateful--thanks to their efforts, I have a much brighter future than my dad ever had. And I've been inspired to participate in Team Challenge as well, so you've been warned as I'm pretty sure I have email addresses for all my readers so I can reach you for fundraising appeals. In addition, there were 150,000+ votes in the IBD Icons program, and we raised another $20,000 for research. At the pasta dinner, the mister and I sat with the other IBD Icon (Doug) and his family as well as Casey Abrams and his family. Casey is really nice and so are his parents, so please think about supporting him as he tries to establish himself in his music career. He's really putting himself out there by being so open about his illness and is really helping all of us out. And his music is really pretty good!
On Sunday, we went to the pre-race concert and Doug and I were introduced as IBD Icons at the end of Casey's concert. The mister continues to tease me that I had my queen wave down pat. (Hello, THIS is why I need a tiara!) We were going to try to wait around for the start of the marathon as Mike McCready (who has Crohn's) of Pearl Jam was performing the National Anthem but it was cold and we were afraid of getting trapped by all the runners and not making it back to our hotel. So we watched on TV instead.
The trip really was amazing and Vegas is incredible. However, we learned we aren't really built for Vegas--we were in bed by 10 each night. We had dinner reservations at 8 one evening and I had to take a nap before dinner. Pathetic. I think we'll need to stick to our hiking vacations!
Thank you all so much for your support in this endeavor and sending me on this trip. You have been there for me through it all and I couldn't do this with out you. As I've said before, I was pretty hesitant to share my story. But I know I had to do it, and hopefully it will help someone else out there know that there's life after IBD. There are some things I can't do, but there are more things that I can do. This disease is not the death sentence I thought it was when I received my diagnosis. I don't know what my future holds but as long as I'm healthy, I owe it to myself (and to my dad's memory) to live life to the fullest as long as I possibly can. And I've realized through this experience that these diseases are bigger than me and my family--there are a lot of fellow travellers on this path and we owe it to each other to help each other out.
[Cue Lean on Me playing in the background and fade to black ]
2 comments:
Keira will be sending you a tiarra shortly:)
So proud of you!
Just think how proud your Dad is. He has a beautiful daughter who is growing and doing to make this world a better place. And with style! so glad you got the see Vegas. It's a strange, strange world, that place.
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