Friday, June 01, 2007

Successful Run, Heart News, Don Cherry, and Golf...



Hi All,

Well, it's been a very busy and successful week or two for The Isaac Foundation. Our RUN FOR ISAAC! event at the National Capital Race went very well. Because of our status as a Destination Charity for the event, we received a booth at the Pfizer Health and Fitness Expo. It was a great opportunity to meet people and inform them about Isaac, his disease, and our Foundation because over 30,000 people go through the Expo ever year. We sold a lot of our Isaac Foundation Apparel and took donations from the public to support our run. It was a great event to be a part of and we Thank the organizers for making it such a successful expo.


Race Weekend was truly awesome! Our Run For Isaac! team did very well, some posting personal bests for their times, some running in the full marathon for the first time, some (including me!) running the 1/2 for the first time, and some running for the first time period!

It was an incredible commitment for our runners to make and we truly thank them for their efforts! Everyone worked hard to canvass for pledges, promote our foundation and, of course, train for their races. My family drove the 6 1/2 hours for the trip, ran in the race, helped out at the booth, looked after Isaac and Gabriel while Ellen and I raced, and didn't complain the whole time!


It was really nice to be able to meet new people and bring together a group that cares truly and deeply about our son. They want to make a difference in his life, and the life of others affected by this disease, and it was overwhelming to have their support. Runners that came out will now be life-long friends and we look forward to getting to know everyone well over the coming years.

Initial figures suggest that we made close to $10,000 for the Foundation, money that will go directly towards funding innovative research projects that aim to cure this disease. Thank you to everyone for their tremendous effort!


After we returned from Race weekend, Isaac had treatment on Tuesday and an appointment with the Cardiologist on Wednesday, both at Sick Kids' in Toronto. Treatment went well and we learned that Isaac grew another cm. To most this isn't big news, for our family this is incredible!


The cardiologist told us that Isaac's ventricle is still enlarged, and more so than last time we were there. This happens because of his heart-valve prolapse and the blood shoots back into his ventricle as it moves through his heart. In an effort to control the enlargement, Isaac has now been placed on blood pressure medication. Ideally, this prevents the ventricle from growing. We'll update more on this when we know more.


One of the apparel items that we had made up in addition to our hats, t-shirts, hoodies, and golf shirts, is a hockey jersey. And they look incredible!! I wore it to school one day (a crazy, hot day no doubt) and it was a huge hit. A friend of mine suggested that we make one up for Don Cherry and send it along to see if he can wear it on Coach's Corner. So we did! And it looks great. We put his name on the back and gave him Bobby Orr's #4. Now we're just working on getting it out to him in time for the Cup finals in Ottawa. We've been working away at this idea now for a while and we're hopeful that he'll be able to wear it. Pictures of the jersey for Don are posted below the rest of the pictures of the runners (speaking of photos of runners...sorry we didn't get a shot of everyone. I hope it's understandable! We' had so many runners, not enough time to shoot everyone!) If you have photos of the event, please send them along and I'll try to put a photo album together for everyone and upload it to the main site.


Finally, we're madly working towards our 2nd annual Celebrity Golf tournament. The event takes place on June 23rd at the Inverary Golf Club near Kingston, Ontario. Cost is $500 per team, which will include a $75 charitable receipt, golf, cart, lunch, dinner, and prizes for each participant. Please send us an email if you'd like to register your team as spots are filling up fast!


As promised...here's the Hockey Jersey for Don Cherry! Hopefully he's interested in wearing it. We've got a lot going for us! They're Bruin's colours, Bobby Orr's number is on the back, The charity is for a little boy, We're from KINGSTON!, and they really are beautiful shirts. GO DON!


Guess that's it for now. We'll try to update again soon.
Warmest,
The Isaac Foundation

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. It is always great pleasure to read your posts.