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Friday, December 7, 2012

Lemierre's on TV once again!!!

It just makes me so happy every time I heard that a TV station or show has decided to do a segment on TV.  Even if it is only 2 min long.  There have been a handful of them that are actual real stories of people that I know battled this disease.  The only wish I have is  they would mention a little more how deadly this disease is and stop saying it's rare!!  I have much proof to prove how UNRARE (is that a word LOL) it actually is.   OH and maybe that they would mention our non profit!  LOL  that's not to much to ask is it !

On Animal Planet tonight 7pm there is a show called "Monsters inside me".
The guy they are doing the segment on was an actual patient with Lemierre's and from what I read he is a DR. TOO!!! 

Here is the link to the story if you would like to read it. 

http://www.pe.com/local-news/san-bernardino-county/san-bernardino-county-headlines-index/20121205-colton-doctor-former-patient-to-be-on-tv.ece

I was really bumbed and thought I was going to miss it because we have to go to Cruz's school from 6-8 BUT I saw that is will replay at 10pm!!! SO I will get to see it! These times are our times so please check your station to see when it plays for you.


xoxoxo
 

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Awaness items on sale!!!

All of our awareness items will be 50% off for the month of Decemeber!!!
Happy Holidays!!!! 

xoxoxo
Tammy

Friday, September 28, 2012

Happy Birthday Justin!

Every year on this date I wonder what we would be doing if you were still here! 
The boys wanted to go to the cemetery today but we will stop by tomorrow. 
I hope we meet our goal tomorrow at your Trivia Night!  We've worked so hard on this event and so many people have helped us get to where we are!  I pray that this medical research really helps us better understand this disease and help Dr's better understand it as well! 
I knew the second I got that phone call to hurry to the hospital and come say goodbye that I was not going to let you die and not do something about it.  I had to do something, we were so misinformed and I do not want any other family to feel that way!  There was nothing on the Internet to help us understand what you were going through and now because of you and your story there is!  We can warn people of how serious this really is and what steps to take and it's all because of you!  We had to lose you in order to do this.  I know that now but I can tell you though I don't like it I understand.   
Antonio knows your name and face but I wish he knew YOU.  Kristiana will look at me sometimes and say, "Mom uncle Justin held me when I was a baby and he loved me."  He sure did is all I can say back to her.   You use to make me so made before you got sick.  But now I know you were just being a teenager and I know I'm in for the same crap with Allen, Cruz, Kristiana and Antonio!  Especially Antonio.  He is our little Justin all over!
OH and guess what!  You know how we fought about Mike and him playing for Nebraska and how you said Nebraska stinks!!  Well he made it onto the Rams!!  SOOO NAH! In your face!!!

We love you with our entire hearts and we will see you again!

xoxoxoxoxo
Tammy, Tony, Allen, Cruz, Kristiana and Antonio

Friday, September 14, 2012

Gift Cards needed

Our Trivia is a little more than 2 weeks away!! 
We have sold 17 tables and have 9 more avaiable!!! 
If you are in our area please share this fundraiser with all your friends!
Signs will be going up all around Eureka tomorrow!

We have some GREAT items for our silent auction!  Some of the items we have received are

Securtiy system with monitoring discount
Coach Hand Bag
Signed mini Rams helemt
2 signed basballs from the Cardinals (Allen Craig & Jon Jay)
2 Fred bird shirts
Cardinals blanket
Cardinals fitted Hat
2 Build A Bears and $10 gift card
3 Different Avon Baskets
Gift cards to Harvest Resturant
Igloo Cooler Set
Cub Cake baskets
Scratch Off Loto
Branson Get Away Package
and much much more! 
I do not want to list it all out here I would like some to be a surprsise!!!

One thing we are looking for is Gift Cards (any amount) to stores, restuarnts or gas stations.  Any where really! 
Just send them to
Tammy Valencia
11695 Castle Ranch Rd
Desoto, MO 63020

Our Goal is to raise $3,000 and we are well on our way!!!

Help us fill those last 9 tables!!!

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Lemierre's Video

At the top of our webpage I posted a Lemierre's Video I found this morning.
I really like this video because I can understand what the Dr. is saying.  Sometimes it is hard to understand what Dr.s are saying because of the technical words they use. ;0)
Check it out and pass it along to others!

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Trivia Night ~ Tables will go fast!

I will be putting up flyers and posters all over Eureka next week as well as putting ADs in the Newspapers all over St. Louis. 
I am hoping once we do this the tables will be selling fast!  So this is to all Friends and Family in the St. Louis area.  Please get your tables reservations in to me ASAP.  I would hate for you to wait until the last minute and then I have to tell you we are full!  ;0( 
xoxoxoxoxo

Our goal with this fundraiser is to raise $3,000!!!!  We need $4,000 but our goal is $3,000.

Help us meet our goal!!!
We will have mulligans for sale ~ those that do not know what they are, these are basically a guarantee right answer!  ;0)
We will also play Heads/Tails throughout the night and have 2 ~ 50/50 raffles  
There will also be Lemierre's items for sale such as T Shirts, wrist bands, stickers, ribbons and other items.
We will have a table set up for our silent auction baskets!  Some of the things we have received so far are:
A Baking Basket
Hot Air Balloon Ride
A Home Security System
31 Tote bag
2 tickets to Silver Dollar city along with 2 tickets to the Steam boat Branson Belle
Avon items
Premier Design Jewelry pieces
Build A Bear items
Gift cards to places all around St. Louis including
Hot topic
Bedbath n beyond
Barnes n Noble
Harvest Restaurant

We have much much more coming!!!! 

If you would like to put together a basket OR just donate a gift card to anywhere; gas stations, restaurant, local place of business, please
just let me know by Sept 15th. 
THANK YOU!!!!

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Fundraiser TIME!

This September we are going to hold a Trivia Night  to help us raise money for Dr Robert Centor's research! 

I started the Donation letter today!  I will be mailing this letter to many companies here in St. Louis.  If you know of any company (does not have to be in the St. Louis area) that you think would donate to us for this event please email me or leave a comment here. This can be any thing examples are, drinks (alcohol or non alcohol), snacks, items for Silent Auction or Prizes, money or anything else that can be thought of.

I will post more details about this Trivia Night in a few weeks.  Our plan is to make this a FUN trivia night and ask questions that any age group should be able to answer.  ;0)  I've been to plenty of Trivia Nights and thought to myself "wow this really makes me feel dumb!"  I think it would be really fun to have a DJ set up after the Trivia Night and we can dance and hang out afterwards. 

The way I have seen them work in the past is you sell tables. For example you have a table that can seat 8-10 people and they can buy it for $120 - $160.  Those details will be figured out very shortly.

Justin's Birthday is Sept 28th and I would love to have this event on the 29th hopefully it will work out for that date.       
xoxoxoxo

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Slides

I just realized the company that we had our picture slides through on this site and our Lemierresyndrome.com site is no longer in business. ;0( So I will be working on getting more pictures up of our items we have for sale as well as the pictures of Justin.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Donation Sent!

I put a check in the mail for Dr. Robert Centor and his medical team for their study! I'm really excited that we get to help them with their study! Thank you to everyone that has purchased awareness items and helped us in our fundraising efforts. We are still trying to come up with ideas for more fundraisers. If you have an idea or heard of something another Non - Profit has done and you think it would be a big success email me! ;0) Sunflwz2@Yahoo.com I received a phone call from my cousin the other day and she heard of a Zombie 5K Run. She heard they were looking for Charities to help so I emailed them and we'll see what happens. It looks really cool! www.runforyourlives.com I would love to be a apart of this event. Pretty scary stuff! Tammy

Friday, February 24, 2012

Fundraisers

Many of you have contacted me in the last 4 years and have expressed to me your thoughts of this horrible disease. Some of you are survivors, some of you family members of lost loved ones and some just learned about the disease through our efforts. First off I want to thank you all for contacting me and expressing your thoughts and encouragement to us. It's because of all your emails and comments that we have continued our efforts and our fight against this disease. For the last 4 years our fight was to make people more aware of this disease, in the hopes it would reach Dr's so we could diagnose this faster. The past 4 years I have been in contact with Dr Robert Centor. Many of you already know him and his website. www.medrants.com He has spent over 30 years studying pharyngitis and all those nasty bacterias. I approached him in Jan asking if he knew of anyone doing a study or needing funds to help start a study and coincidentally that is when he told me about what he has going on. He has a new study going on right now for Fusobacterium necrophorum pharyngitis. This is what he had to say about his new study "We hope to describe the signs and symptoms of fusobacterium pharyngitis. Currently too many physicians withhold antibiotics from adolescents and young adults with significant pharyngitis. We want to change the approach to adolescent and young adult pharyngitis and hopefully prevent the development of Lemierre syndrome." He needs funds to help run this study and I told him we would be willing to help. Many of you have contacted me asking how to run or set up a fundraiser in your area. Since we are the only Charity or Non Profit for Lemierre's it is very hard for us to set up a walk that happens in cities all over the US. I just came back from a fundraiser a company held in PA last weekend. It was a huge success and it will really help towards our goal in this study. We have done a few fundraisers here in St. Louis that have been great we held a Walk, a paintball tournament, a dance, the event at Hidden Valley a few years ago was fun and brought in the largest donation we have received yet! If any of you have ideas of how we can get others involved in cities all across the the US as well as in the UK we would love to hear them. Please email me as soon as you have an idea. If any of you want to set up a fundraiser in your area but do not know how to start or what to do I would be willing to share my thoughts and opinions with you. Any ideas or thoughts you all have would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for your emails, thoughts, prayers and helping us fight this battle!

Monday, February 20, 2012

Our trip to PA

Chrissy and I made the trip to PA this past weekend to accept a donation from a company whose employee developed Lemierre's this past Nov. Every year this company holds a fundraiser for a charity that hits close to home to one of their employee's. This year they chose us since their employee/friend Marc developed lemierre's not too long ago. Everyone was very nice and I love that they do this every year! This was their 22nd year holding this fundraiser. Every year they choose 3 men and 3 women and they hold a BBQ lunch and bake sale and instead of the employees paying for the food they put the money in the canister of the person they want to win. I'll give you one guess on who was crowned King, Marc! ;0) I will post pictures as soon as I receive them. This donation they gave to us is really going to help with our first research study!
Yep that's right Dr. Robert Centor is starting a research study on why young adolescents developed Lemierre's, why the Fusobacterium necrophorum grows with some of the patients with sore throats and not the others...? We are going to help fund this research which means we will be holding fundraisers in the very near future. I am also putting together a database in my Yahoo account with every person who has contacted me in the last 4 years in regards to lemierre's. I will be sending out an email to every person in that database asking for their help in fundraising. Hopefully I will be done with this by the end of this week. We need ideas. As well as help holding some of these fundraisers in other parts of the U.S. Maybe your company has a charity they donate to each year, maybe this year it could be to us to help with this study! Or maybe you want to hold a BBQ or a walk or some other event to help us raise funds for this study. We would really appreciative of any ideas or any thoughts anyone has. Check out Dr. Centor's blog at www.medrants.com Thank you!! Lots of love, Tammy

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Exciting things going on!!

We were approached by a LS Survivor to be a part of his companies fundraiser this year!  Every year this man's employer holds a fundraiser event and donates all the proceeds to a charitable organization and this year they chose us!!!  We will be flying to PA Feb 17th to accept the check!  This is the 2nd company to approach us to be a part of their fundraiser! HOPEFULLY there will be more to come,  I'm really excited about it because we have a pretty huge project coming up that needs some serious funds in order to pull it off!  We are going to have a meeting in Feb to discuss fundraising opportunities in the very near future! 
After our meeting I will be able to tell you what our new project is!! 

If you think your company would like to hold an event or help us with our fundraisers let me know!  OR if you have any questions about how to hold a fundraiser or need ideas in what to do email me.  sunflwz2@yahoo.com

I really appreciate all everyone has done to help us!  Hopefully this will be our next step into getting people all around the US and then some to hold fundraisers to help us and our project.  We WILL succeed in getting the word out about this disease as well as diagnosing and treating it faster so no one has to suffer the pain as we and so many other families have!  


xoxoxoxo
Tammy

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Sweet Caroline

Prayers needed for a sweet little 3 year old - Caroline. She is battling Lemierres and was in a drug induced comma in Fleming Island, FL! I know my brother is watching over her and her Dr's right now!


Caroline we are all praying for you! xoxoxoxoxo


http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/carolinekneisley/journal


Looks like she is doing a little better today.


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Music


Justin's news article in the West Magazine

This was taken from http://www.westnewsmagazine.com/news02.html

Rockwood student dies rapidly from little-known disease
By Diane Plattner

In April, Eureka High School student Justin Rodgers began to complain of a severe sore throat and was dead approximately one month later from an unfamiliar disease. Now, his mother hopes to spread awareness about the deadly disease.
Justin died in the early morning hours of May 12, the day after Mother’s Day, after losing a battle with Lemierre’s Syndrome, a serious bacteria that is not well-known and even doctors are prone to misdiagnose the disease. Unfortunately, Rodgers’ doctor was among that group after initially diagnosing him with strep throat on April 11, said Sheryl Rodgers, Justin’s mother.
“Justin had said, ‘Mom, this is the worst sore throat I’ve ever had in my life,’” Rodgers said.
She said that Justin’s doctor took no throat culture and gave her son medicine for strep throat. She said her son’s condition worsened over the next few days during which he had increased high fever, chest pain and a lump in his neck. On April 14, Rodgers took her son to St. Anthony’s Hospital, which transported him overnight to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital where he underwent extensive testing, including X-rays and blood work, Rodgers said.
Rodgers said that hospital officials diagnosed him with Lemierre’s Syndrome, a bacteria that can surface after mouth trauma. Last July, Justin was in a car accident that resulted in mouth injuries that required him to get major dental work, including a recent new tooth. In addition, Justin had suffered a broken nose just before the onset of his sore throat, his mother said.
“I wonder if all this woke up the bacteria, which was already living in the body,” Rodgers said.
The last time Rodgers saw him fully awake was a few days later, when hospital officials decided to place her son on a respirator and sedate him with drugs.
“He was out of it but still with us then,” Rodgers said. “He would frown when the doctors worked on him. So he had some responses.”
However, Justin’s lungs kept collapsing, prompting hospital doctors by April 25 to place him on an ECMO machine to help rest his lungs and heart. Doctors at that point also put him into an induced coma, Rodgers said.
“At that point there was no response from Justin,” Rodgers said. “Still, I talked to him and rubbed his sore spots to let him know we were there.”
By Mother’s Day, Justin was leaking too much blood, prompting doctors to decide to remove him from the ECMO, a move they said was risky if his lungs were not healed enough.
“Once they took him off the ECMO, Justin’s face was getting gray,” Rodgers said. “He was holding his own for a few hours, but then he starting going downhill.”
Justin died early the next morning following Mother’s Day with his immediate family, including three older siblings, by his side, Rodgers said.
“He was our baby,” Rodgers said. “I think the hospital tried to keep him going so he did not die on Mother’s Day.”
The tragedy is not the first for the Rodgers family. They also lost a 4-year-old child in a horseback riding accident and had a stillborn child many years ago, Rodgers said.
“I thought God could not possibly do this to us again,” Rodgers said. “I asked why again, why us. But there is no answer. Here we are walking on egg shells again.”
Rodgers said she was at least thankful that Justin’s funeral was so big that people were standing outside, a huge tribute to his life. She also hopes to honor his life with a campaign to help spread awareness about Lemierre’s Syndrome, which she said often hits people between the ages of 14 and 25. It is not spread by kissing but instead lives in the body, she said. Her goal is to make people, including doctors, more aware of its symptoms so they are not mistaken for strep throat.
“I do not want Justin to have died in vain,” Rodgers said. “This is one bad bacteria. It is very serious. People should not treat it lightly.”
To learn more about Lemierre’s Syndrome, visit the Rodgers’ family Web site at lemierresyndromejrodgers.blogspot.com.