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- ► 2012 (51)
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- Equipment Series - Part 3: Making the best arguments for insurance coverage
- Equipment Series - Part 2: Evaluating and comparing special needs strollers and wheelchairs
- Equipment Series - Part 1: Before, during, and after the equipment evaluation
- Equipment Series - Introduction: Special needs strollers and wheelchairs
- Standing up for "invisible" illnesses
- Therapy Thursday: Chewies, Chewelry & More
- What would you do?
- ► July (3)
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- ► 2011 (53)
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- Anatomy of an Intrathecal Clinical Trial Visit
- Advocacy Series: Advocacy in 4 Steps
- Once Upon a Cure: Part II of our interview with Deb Purcell
- Fundraising, gala style: Once Upon a Cure, part I of our interview with Deb Purcell
- Therapy Thursday: Sensory Integration and Sensory Diets
- Just keep swimming...
- And still lives there with his family...
- Intrathecal Trial Update - Trial structure
- ► September (3)
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My (un)Planned Son- A Re-imagined Christmas List December 11, 2012I'm kind of at my wits' end with Christmas lists. Are there things we'd like? Sure. Are there things we need? Not so much. But still we go through the process every year of looking through catalogs, daydreaming, and scrolling to find just those additional things to fill our house to (over)capacity. So why then do we make Christmas lists? Certa […]
- Who you are October 14, 2012I heard a song recently and one line particularly stuck with me. It said, "sometimes pain's the only way that we can learn." Maybe that's true. I found my true self on April 6, 2009, lying flat on the floor sobbing for the life of my child. But what if that hadn't happened? What if Hunter Syndrome were never part of our lives? Would […]
- A Re-imagined Christmas List December 11, 2012
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Featured Stories
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Intrathecal Trial Update – “Jeep for me!”
Case hit another milestone by claiming Jeeps
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Rare Disease, Rick Guidotti, and Redefining Beauty
I’ve mentioned before the amazing work of Rick Guidotti and the Positive Exposure team. He was responsible for the Hunter in Focus exhibit that has now been shown in several…
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Celebrating Case’s Heart on MPS Awareness Day
Happy MPS Awareness Day! Many rare diseases affect the heart – that muscle that powers our movement, our strength, our … love? In MPS, I have my priority list of…
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Media: Mucopolysaccharidosis and Other Rare Disease in the News
My friends Jill Wood (an MPS IIIC mom), the Leider family (with two MPS II boys) and I were incredibly blessed to be involved in a project by Lisa Jarvis,…
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Silent Siblings: MPS and special needs can take their toll
In so many ways, our lives as parents revolves around the constant needs of a medically involved, special needs child. But what about their unaffected siblings? How do we protect…
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Is a disability-free world a *perfect* world?
If you speak to most parents or siblings of a disabled child or adult, they will share how much they learned from them. Even friends or teachers or the checkout…
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PICU, pulses, and oxygen
I remember the PICU. A life of watching oxygen saturation, heart rate, pulse. Case was 2 1/2 or so when he spent 4 days in the PICU. Not a lot…
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The Struggle
For my friends who are currently worn. Whether it’s MPS or something else, maybe you’ve just lost your child, or he’s in the hospital, newly diagnosed, or losing the skills…
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The Systemic Impact of Rare Disease: Medical, Emotional, Financial, Social
Rare diseases may seem like solely a health care issue, but in fact, a newly released report finds that their impact is much more systemic, affecting the health care system…
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The Difference 4 Years Can Make
Today is Case’s diagnosiversary. April 6. Four years ago today. It wasn’t the day that some doctor came in and told me Case had Hunter Syndrome. But it was the…
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A Boy and His Boots
Most little boys want to be a cowboy. Woody, from Disney’s Toy Story, is the ultimate hero. And so now it is with Case. In this way, as in so…
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Therapy Thursday: 4 Tips for Oral Health with Children with Special Needs
For children with special needs, especially Mucopolysaccharidosis, oral and dental health can be one of the biggest challenges. Using Hunter Syndrome as an example, children not only have innate deficiencies…
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Shire HGT’s #RareDisease Developments
For those of us intimately involved in the future of Shire and its division Shire HGT, either because we or our kids already use a Shire product (us), because we’re…
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Birthdays, Blessings, & Burdens
Today is Case’s 6th birthday and I could not let the day pass without acknowledging what a blessing he is in our life. I also want to note that not…
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When Rare Just Isn’t Enough: The Case of Elmiron
Many fonts have been spilled in recent months about the popularity of orphan drugs for big and small pharma and biotechs. The titles of articles alone are enough to give…
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Intrathecal Trial Update – Words on a Page
It is quite strange to see the last few years of your life boiled down to a few paragraphs of text and a line on a chart. It is even…
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When every day is Valentine’s Day
It is circled on our calendar. Valentine’s Day. We eagerly anticipate the possible cards and gifts and extra hugs that it will bring. We relish in giving surprises or even…
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Patient Strategist? Well, yes I am.
We go by many names. Patient advocate -> advocating in health care. e-Patient -> using the internet to gather health information and cope with your condition. Parent Advocate -> advocating…
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Go Ahead and Stare
I recently wrote an article that was published today in the Positive Exposure newsletter about my experience visiting the Hunter in Focus exhibit this year in NYC. Go Ahead and…
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Why I Fear the Bubble, Part 2: A Crash at the Intersection of Personalized Medicine and #RareDisease Research?
For Part 1 of this series: Why I Fear the Bubble, Part 1: The Pricing of #RareDisease Drugs —————- One thing I took away from the World Orphan Drug Congress…
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Why I Fear the Bubble, Part 1: The Pricing of #RareDisease Drugs
NPS Pharmaceuticals just this week priced their drug for short bowel syndrome, Gattex, at an annual cost of $295,000 per patient. This price may not raise too many eyebrows among…
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New Year’s Resolution
Enough said.
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Hunter Syndrome 2.0
I had a great conversation a few months ago with my friend Chris Dutcher, an adult with Hunter Syndrome. Now if you’re a friend who may only know Case’s “version”…
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And the winners are…
We are pleased to announce the two winners of $50 gift certificates to ARKTherapeutic.com…. First of all, thank you to all who entered our first giveaway. Please spread the word…
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Special Needs Giveaway! Two $50 credits to ARK Therapeutic!
Are you interested in some of the fabulous products offered by ARK Therapeutic Services? I received a great response to my earlier post on chewies and thought we could do…
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Live at “Hunter in Focus”
Success. The event was a success. Lives were touched, awareness was raised, and connections were made. Were Case there, he would have pointed at the tall picture of himself, danced…
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Through His Eyes: Behind the scenes of “Hunter in Focus”
Perfection When you first hold that baby, he is perfect. Small and beautiful and perfect. And the first time that someone tells you he isn’t perfect is hard to swallow….
































