------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey, Everyone! My name is Katherine and yes, I feel like an a$$ asking you for your hard earned money. This is different from my yearly fundraising for MDA - that money doesn't go to me and could possibly fund the cure for my son someday. So I have NO issue asking you to fork over some change for that. But this? Money for me? Yeah. Aca-awkward. But I don't know what else to do. So here goes.
I have a 5 yr old son named Andrew. He is the most wonderful, difficult, silly, stubborn, beautiful mess. He is so Little and smart and loves to dance and is really starting to develop a precious love for God. He also happens to have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a rare and terminal rapidly progressive muscle wasting disease. Little can walk today, but in a few years he will not. Soon after that, he will lose the ability to lift his arms. His lungs will fail. His heart will fail. There is no cure. There is no treatment nor drug to slow the progression of the disease. He is not expected to live past his early 20s.
I have chronic headaches, neck and shoulder pain that trigger migraines every few days. The posture one takes from caring for someone one who only comes up to your waist coupled with carrying said human on your left hip every day for 5.5 years will do that to you. I will be doing this his entire life. (Yes, I do have to carry him even though he can walk. He moves at a snail's pace and fatigues after just a few minutes on his feet.)
So what does all this have to do with yoga and why do I need financial help?
Well, yoga is the one hour of the day where I am both pain free and anxiety free. Practicing takes away every muscle ache, every desire to crack a vertebrae. I focus on breathing and stretching and not on Little's upcoming doctor appointments or how many times he's already fallen that day. I want to give that hour to others. I want to give an hour like that to my son. I want to go into senior centers and rehabilitation centers and give an hour of relief to them. I want to support ,yield and my child financially. I want to give him a future above the poverty level. I want to safely and effectively stretch my child when he can no longer move on his own. But to do that, I need certification. And certification costs money. Andrew and I are on an incredibly tight (like non existent) budget due to the loss of income that has come our way recently. We have had to sell our home in KY and head to AR. We are also mooching off of my sister and brother-in-law so we have a roof over our heads. So, yeah, no extra change for yoga school. But this is what I want to do with my life.
I need to start NOW while Little is relatively healthy and I can get to class for 9 months, start teaching, and eventually rent a studio space. I don't know how long I have with Andrew, and I want to do everything I can to make his quality of life better. So that's why I need your help. School starts in Sept and I need to register within the next few weeks, but I can't register unless I know I will be able to pay for it. $3000 for certification, $ for classes outside of the teaching studio where I can do my homework, and $ for practice tools. $3500 should cover it. So, that's my novella.
Can you help us?
Namaste - Katherine
You can follow along with us at (and our FB link is on the right hand side of the page)
www.HomemadeTaterTot.blogspot.com
