Wendy has more spleens than you

One of the biggest and bestest intentions I had with this new site o' mine was to promote PCD awareness, and I have been negligent. Melon-headed kitties sure are cool, though...

Okay, so here's the main scoop. Many of you fine folks may not be aware of this: I, along with many other wonderful and important people, have a bizarre genetic condition that is also ridiculously rare, and therefore hard to diagnose/treat/know what the heck to do about it at all. It's called PCD, which stands for Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia. That basically means that all of the billions and billions (think Carl Sagan) of little teeny sub-cellular sized hairlike thingies that line the lungs, sinuses, ears, and other places do not work. They are supposed to wave in a synchronized fashion to the tune of many times per second. It's a beautiful thing. They look like wheat fields in the wind, only on high speed. At least when they work.

When they don't, all kinds of havoc ensues. Mainly snot. In all seriousness, it's not an imminently fatal or life-crushing disease, but it is very not fun and it CAN have some very serious effects, particularly for the lungs. As in many older patients are getting lung transplants, and that's not a good thing. Very little is known about it thus far. I encourage all of you, I mean ALL of you, to please peruse the PCD Foundation website link to the right just there. Please.

This is all a prelude to me asking you for all your money. I will be hosting a walkathon for the PCDF in October, and I'd really like everybody who can to participate, either by becoming a walker and collecting pledges, or by pledging money to another walker. I have a lofty goal of raising at least $4,000.00. I can't do it without you all! More details on the walk will be posted here as they come up.

I have also provided links to my friend Wendy's art site and blog.

Here is her wildlife art site.

Her blog link is at the right. She is a fabulous artist, and even better, she has a lot of spleens. Truly. We plan on hosting some sort of deal to raise more money for the PCDF through the purchasing of her art--something like $1.00 of every print ordered going to the foundation. Please check it out and let me know if you want to buy something and we'll work out the donation details. She's a starving artist/PCD survivor so you really ought to buy something from her--maybe she'll be able to get a spleen consolidation operation or something. Thanks so much for your devotion, adoration, accolades, money, fast cars, sock puppets, chocolate...