Friday, September 28, 2012

CMT Awareness month

I am coming out of blog SILENCE! I've been, um, super busy, but that is a post for another day.

Today I write to honor my BLOGGER friend Donna who I had the pleasure of meeting at Rev3 Maine last month. She is just as sweet and wonderful in person as she is on her blog Beating Limitations. I wish I hadn't been so crazy busy on a race weekend so that I could have spent some more time with her.

Donna has a nerve disorder called CMT. CMT is the most common nerve disorder - yet it is the least well known. Donna is on a mission to change that. Many CMT patients suffer in silence as it might not be apparently OBVIOUS when meeting someone that they actually have this disorder. Those with CMT have difficutly in transmitting signals to their muscles. The result is muscle atrophy. Generally it starts from your hands and feet and progresses over time to your core.

Can you imagine!? Starting to have muscle atrophy and not knowing where it will go next... how quickly it will progress.. how it might affect your life from hobbies to work to quality of life!? Donna faces this EVERY DAY .. and instead of just accepting it she has decided to live life to the fullest by staying active with triathlon and working to promote awareness to support initiatives to fund research to find a cure!!!

You can learn more about Donna and her amazing self at www.beatinglimitations.com. You can learn more about CMT at www.cmtausa.org AND!!!!! You can donate to help find a cure at www.cmtausa.org/donna

Donna is super awesome and as I mentioned one of her missions in life is to spread the word about CMT. During our big push to raise money for Ulman Cancer Fund and Team Fight via the Run Across America  she approached Team Rev3 by way of my team mate Jamie Bull. She offered to donate $10 per person to Ulman Cancer Fund's Team Fight (Rev3s Charity Partner) for each person that agreed to receive and wear a CMTA tech T and blog about CMT. How amazing is that! She created a win win.. CMT gets exposure so that YOU are aware of this nerve disorder and it's impact on the lives of others AND money is raised for Ulman Cancer Fund. /

I hope that you will take a moment to read about CMT and donate to her cause. This is NOT fatal disease (in most cases), but it affects people's ability to maintain a healthy happy lifestyle (which most of us take for granted) and to continue to live a NORMAL life doing things for themselves as the disease progresses. This is no way to live and a cure must be found!