Odds and ends

We were toying with the idea of posting a blog that ties up some loose ends, and inspired by the recent post on Brain Cheese, here are some of the things we’ve been meaning to tell you:

Bruce didn’t play “For You.” Despite our valiant efforts from the not-so-cheap seats, Springsteen didn’t see our sign and play “For You” when we saw him at the Palace Nov. 13. But no hard feelings. He, along with the “heart-stopping pants-dropping house-rocking earth-shaking booty-quaking Viagra-taking love-making legendary E Street Band” instead gave us nearly three hours of rock and roll insanity, highlighted by a performance of the entire Born to Run album. Thanks for everything, Bruce.

123 days and counting. Michigan native Joe Fairchild has been running across America to raise money and awareness for Multiple Sclerosis. According to his news release, “Though covering 25-30 miles most days is a challenge, to Joe the journey is about much more than a physical feat. He will be making the journey alone, pushing all of his essentials—a tent, sleeping bag, clothes, food, water—in a modified baby stroller.” Now 2,415 miles into his trip, he’s hoping to reach Los Angeles by the end of the year. Learn more about him and his journey at runsomemore.com.

Coverage in the media. The beginning of December brought a one-two punch of excellent media coverage of our efforts to increase awareness of MS and inspire others living with the disease. It started on Dec. 2 when we learned that our friend Lindsay Allen featured us in her guest blog “Dan and Jennifer Digmann: Fighting MS, hand-in-hand, one day at a time” on Justin case you were wondering. Thanks, LA! Then, two days later Central Michigan Life ran the story, “Mount Pleasant couples copes with multiple sclerosis, inspires others with disabilities.” Thanks to the reporter Jake Bolitho and photographer Ashley Miller! We appreciate all your support in helping to get the message out.

We cleaned up a little bit. To add the above media coverage to our “In the news” section, we took a little time to clean up our blog, which included adding Michael Gerber’s blog, Perspective is Everything, to our home page. We enjoy his writing and, well, his perspective and we encourage you to check it out regularly. We also added Dina Kawer’s blog, How Will I Get Back Down?, to share with you her inspirational story of climbing historic Masada, despite her MS. Or perhaps it was to spite her MS. We had the honor of meeting her at the NMSS annual meeting a few weeks ago and hope you have a few minutes to read her story.

Little did we know. Yeah, come to find out our parents knew we were going to receive the MS Achievement Award all along. Apparently they had been informed of the award so they would do their part to encourage us to attend the annual meeting in Livonia. So this is why Dan’s mom offered to pay for a hotel room for us to make it an easier decision to go and why Jennifer’s parents were eager to say they’d go with us so Dan didn’t have to drive the whole way. They keep good secrets. No wonder we never knew what we were getting for Christmas 🙂 And a cherry on top of the MS Achievement Award? Jennifer’s Walk MS team, Team MonsterS, also was recognized at the annual meeting as the 40^th of the top 100 fundraising teams of 2009 for the National Sclerosis Society, Michigan Chapter. Go MonsterS!

There! All loose ends, tied up …