Let's Make a Change

Last week I wrote about my son being diagnosed with vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.  I am raising money for the organization that is driving research for this disorder.   Please read about it here. Thank you to those who have donated and supported my cause. Today I want to provide some clarification and education.  I'm hoping you'll get a sense for how serious this disorder is and, in turn, why I'm so passionate about trying to do something about it.  The bottom line is that VEDS is not common enough to have it's own fundraising machine.  So we're working with the Marfan Foundation to get some visibility and support for VEDS. Some Background There are a number of genetic disorders that are classified as connective tissue disorders.  Marfan Syndrome is probably the most well known.  There are other connective tissue disorders, Loeys Dietz Syndrome, and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.  Within Ehlers-Danlos, there are 13 subtypes.  The common trait of all these disorders is t

  This is my son, Rob.  He's the one on the right.  He is one of the most generous, articulate, intelligent, and funny people I know. I'm not just saying that because he's my son, it's legit :-) You may already know him.  You're lucky. What you may not know is that he has a genetic disorder called Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.  I'll provide more details below. Suffice it to say, it's a very shitty disorder.  In short, people with this disorder don't produce enough collagen.  Collagen is what helps tissues like blood vessel walls and internal organs stay together.  Without collagen, your tissues are prone to tear and rupture.  That's bad...really bad. We only learned that Rob had this disorder in the last few years.  I only recently learned in the last month, that there are organizations that are trying to help.  I will get to my point, I learned that there are a family of connective tissue disorders and they're pretty rare.  In fact, we didn&#