Well, this has been a crazy month! I have been so touched by the generosity of my friends. I wish people would stop doing things anonymously. The joke in our house is that now we have to be nice to everybody, since we don't know who some of the people are who have given so generously to the fund set up to help with my diagnosis of the eye disease, Keratoconus.
 
The good news is that so far we have raised about $3,500. The bad news is that we have lost our substantial donor. This probably means that we'll have to push the crosslinking and INTACS procedure back until we can raise the rest of the funds we need.
 
I found this out yesterday. Yesterday was a horrible, no good, very bad day. I cried to my mom, shook my fist at the heavens, yelled at my kids too much, and ate about two dozen cookies. Today I am trying to re-group, let it go, and move on.
 
Why is this such a big deal? With Keratoconus, there is no way to know how rapidly the condition will advance, or how bad it will get. It's a crap shoot. Do you wait and hope that things stabilize, or do you try a new procedure as quickly as possible, hoping that you can freeze things where they are, so it can't get worse? The old school thought on Keratoconus is to throw you in to a hard contact, which compensates for the change in the corneas curvature, until you can't tolerate that anymore because the deformity of the cornea makes it too uncomfortable. Then you can try some new kinds of contact lenses which are a hybrid lens, combining a hard edge and a soft top, with a very large surface area that avoids the bulging cornea altogether. Then, when you're legally blind you can get on the cornea transplant list. Hopefully your surgery will go well and your body will not reject the new cornea.
The new thought behind management of this disease is to catch it as early as possible, restructure the proteins in the cornea with crosslinking (I am choosing to do Holcomb C3R version because it is less invasive). The doctor can also insert INTACS, which are essentially small slivers of plastic which are placed under the top and bottom of the cornea to help flatten out the irregular cone shape. This will allow better vision, and possibly use of soft contact or glasses to correct vision instead of hard contacts(which I am not tolerating well).
I just wanted to explain why I had hoped to have this procedure done as soon as possible.
 
Anyway, back to my wonderful friends! I have friends who have volunteered their time and talents to help raise money for my procedures. The first event will be Monday, the 22nd of October. It will be a family walk and bake sale, starting in Pine View Park at 5:30. Here's a little more info...

 

This will be a short walk from the park to the LDS chapel on Sandia and back, followed by a bake sale at the park. It would be a fun family activity, not too painful or too long. The suggested donation is $5 per person or $20 per family, but any amount can help. Please come and support us, enjoy the company, get a snack. Please share and get your family and neighbors out to this event. 
Update on the walk....We have been receiving some fun donations to use as raffle prizes! Everyone who registers for the walk will get a raffle ticket for some great stuff like Paul Mitchell hair products, Bath and Body works lotions, pedicures, art card sets, and craft items. There will be a separate dollar raffle for some amazing larger ticket items including; a full day kayak rental, art lessons, art work from local artists, a chiropractic exam, adjustment and treatment from New Life Chiropractic, and one month of private voice lessons with Utah's only Tony Award Winning, Grammy Nominated voice instructor, Lisa Seegmiller! So cool!
 
The next event will be a large yard sale. This will be Saturday, October 27th from 7am-1pm in our driveway at 2386 Coletero Circle in Washington Fields. We will be accepting donations of items for this yard sale from local friends, so dig through your treasures! We'll even come and pick them up from you. 

If you have items or services that you feel may be helpful for the walk/raffle/bake sale or yard sale, please contact me at thedrawingroomstudio@gmail.com.

So after these events have taken place, we'll see how we're doing. If we're anywhere close to our target of just under $14,000 then we'll go ahead with the November 14th appointment. If we're not, we'll push the procedure back and keep plugging away with the fundraising. PLEASE feel free to share this post with anyone you feel may be interested.
 Deep cleansing breaths, just keep breathing, Kirsten.