THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS!

I just have to type up a special "THANK YOU" to everyone that has helped & supported us! We could not continue this fight with out all of you!
I receive at least 5 to 6 emails a WEEK from mom's, dad's, aunt's, uncle's, brother's and sometimes the young people them self that have dealt with this disease! For those Dr.s who say this disease is still rare and only a one in a million change of getting I would like them to contact me. There is no way that is true with all of the emails and stories I receive.
We have received many donations from people all around the world and the people purchasing the ribbons, wrist bands and T shirts are a huge help to!!
We are just at the very beginning of our fight but it is a MUCH needed fight! I can't help but think that there are many more families that have lost their loved ones to this disease and do not even know it! It hides behind so many illnesses and takes so much to diagnose it is insane. You think it's 2009 they know about everything but they don't!
I want to Thank You to these companies that have either donated to us or helped us in any other way! FIRST ONE IS HIDDEN VALLEY in Eureka MO.
When Amity approached us to have the "J-Rod Jam" we were in shock! It turned out to be the best fundraiser I have ever been to! Everyone there especially Amity were amazing!
and at the J-Rod Jam helping us were the following companies:
Monster http://www.monsterenergy.com/
SOKA http://www.sokaskate.com/
Fox Creek Outfitters http://www.foxcreekstl.com/
US Cellular http://www.uscellular.com/
105.7 the point http://www.1057pointthepoint.com/
Z107.7 http://www.z1077.com/
And Kelly Corday with the amazing phone interview on the radio! http://www.y98.com/
Automotive Leasing Corporation also known as Ackerman Auto Plaza http://www.ackermanauto.com/

ALSO a BIG Thank you to Carousel Chocolates www.carousel-chocolates.com
This is my Uncle's company and all his sales from his AMAZING Chocolates goes to our Non Profit.

We have had some great donations for the Golf Tournament and I will list those companies as soon as I have all the information together! Thank you again to everyone!
Because of all the funding we have received so far we are going to start sending letters to EVERY Urgent Care and Doctor office in the United States. I know this disease is WORLD wide but we have to start small. If I take on the whole world I will get too over-whelmed. ;0)
Thank you to Brent!!!! Because of Brent Walquist with Beta Media Group in New York City we now have a Banner with our name and website on it to use at all of our events! Thank you Brent for your donation!
There are so many other people out there helping us Thank you Thank you Thank you!
Dr Robert Centor not only devotes his career to help teach Dr.s about this disease he also supports us as well! Thank you Dr. Centor http://www.medrants.com/ I hope one day we can meet in person!
Love, Tammy

Golf Tournament Sat Sept 26th

We have all the details for our Golf Tournament!!!

It will be held Sat Sept 26th @ 7:00am, (Shotgun Start) at the Sugar Creek Golf Course in Fenton MO.
There will be Golf Pro Awards, Cash Awards for 1st place in multiple flights, Prizes for longest drive & closest to pin, $25,000 hole in one prize, Unlimited Beer, Soda, Water, A Grilled lunch, Optional Skins game for $5 per golfer, Prize Raffle and 50/50 Raffle all of this for only $99.95.
I have uploaded the information sheet as well as the sign up sheet to the right of this post. Please right click on them and select print picture. Please pass around to every golfer you know. This will be lots of fun and you are helping 2 organizations!
If you would like more information please email me.
sunflwz2@yahoo.com

Thank you!!
Love, Tammy

Happy Father's Day!

Just wanted to wish all the fathers out there a "Happy Father's Day"! I hope every one has a great relaxing day!

We have a few events that we will begin working on for Sept. First is our first Lemierre's Walk! This will be sometime in the middle of Sept., I'm not 100% sure on the date yet. The next is a Golf Tournament we were asked to be a part of. This will be held Sept 26th at the Sugar Creek Golf Course located near Fenton. This is going to be a fun event for anyone that golfs. There will be great prizes!! Food and drinks included in the price to participate. There will be teams of 4 so if you and 3 your friends want to join in let me know! Or just you we can always pair you up with others. IF you would like a flyer for this event please email me @ sunflwz2@yahoo.com. I will post the flyer for this event on this site as soon as I have it ready. I will begin sending out letters for donations to local stores or businesses for items like bottle waters or anything else they would like to donate to us for these events. If you know of a business or you your self would like to donate please email me @ sunflwz2@yahoo.com. I will make a large banner with all of our supporters names on it. We appreciate everything everyone has done for this Corporation!
Love,
Tammy

lemierresyndrome.com is # 3 !!!!

I just googled Lemierre Syndrome and out of 20,600 search results our website comes up 3rd!! That's amazing!!!
From what I read on his website Michael has been released from the hospital you can read about his recent surgery @ http://www.prayformichael.com/
Also I have had 2 cases emailed to me this week. One is a 4 yr old boy! I told both of their family's our thoughts and prayers are with them.
I received the short sleeve T Shirts yesterday so they are in and ready to be purchased! ;0)

Thank you everyone!
MUCH LOVE,
Tammy

Happy Mother's Day

I hope all mothers had a great day today! I hope all children were nice to their moms! ;0)
We went to the cemetery to visit my mom's mom, my 2 sisters Mandy & Ashley and my lil bro Justin. Then we all went back to my house and my sister and I made dinner for everyone.

It is so hard to believe just 1 year ago today Justin's battle ended and our battle began! I feel like this year has gone by so fast however I feel like it has been so long since I've seen or talked to my little brother. It feels like just yesterday I was going to sleep scared out of my mind that my phone was going to ring any min and tell me to come say goodbye. Tonight it has been exactly 1 year since I left the hospital feeling so helpless and scared. And at 2 am it will be exactly 1 year that my mom called and told me it's time. May 12th will always be the happiest day of my life as well as the saddest. It is the day I married my best friend as well as the day (one year later) I lost my little brother.

To me May 12 is my little brother's 1 year anniversary of receiving his wings so I feel privileged to be able to share that special day as my wedding anniversary as well.

We have come so far and met so many people in the last year. We have so much more to do and so many more Dr.'s to teach and get in front of to help us fight this disease. All we can do right now is talk and hand out brochures and teach everyone we know. We have been told by many people that we need to get this in front of Oprah! ;0) That would be amazing if we could catch her eye. Maybe one day we will. Thank you to everyone for helping us along the way! I have had so many people ask me how they can help and all we can do right now is talk talk talk. Pass out brochures, try to get Doctors involved and help us spread the word! Lemierre's Syndrome is what the CDC concider a "Orphan disease"
A disease which has not been "adopted" by the pharmaceutical industry because it provides little financial incentive for the private sector to make and market new medications to treat or prevent it.
An orphan disease may be:
A rare disease. According to US criteria, an orphan disease is one that affects fewer than 200,000 people. (There are more than 5,000 such rare disorders.)
A common disease that has been ignored (such as tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, and malaria) because it is far more prevalent in developing countries than in the developed world. (www.medterms.com)
I'm not really sure what we can do to get this disease in front of their face and make them see it is coming back and Doctors right now do not know enough about it to stop it.
I have emailed them 4 times in the last few months so maybe if we all shoot an email to them putting Lemierre's in front of their face and make them see we need to teach Doctors about this disease! All we can do is try and it is something that only takes a few min. www.cdc.gov
Thank you!
Love,
Tammy

Another family in mourning

There has been another loss of a young handsome man by then name of Kegan. His family is now trying to understand what happened as we were just about 1 year ago. From the pictures that I have seen Kegan and Justin had a lot in common. They both were so young and so full of life!
The family gave permission to run an article in their home town newspaper, the Justin E Rodgers Foundation is mentioned a few times!
Thank you so much for helping us get this word out!
http://memphisdemocrat.com/2009/news/090430_hunt.shtml
I spoke with Dr. Centor earlier this week. We are going to be working together and coming up with a way to promote our website and get our name out there and help Dr.'s become more aware!
Tonight is our "A Life to Remember" Prom in Justin's name! I hope everything goes well and I'm sure he will be there with us!

We love you little brother and please help Kegan's family! They need all the love and support they can get right now!
Love,
Tammy

One year ago

Our battle with this disease was just beginning. We had no idea what we were in for.

It really feels like just yesterday all of this happened. I feel like just yesterday I was telling my little brother when he was first admitted to the hospital "All of this to get out of School." Just kidding of course! I also teased him by not wanting to kiss him goodbye because I didn't want to get what he had and pass it along to my 6 week old. MAN DO I REGRET THAT!!! Because that was the last time I ever got to talk to him again!

We have gone from never hearing of Lemierre's, to dealing with it first hand, to trying to find information and research it online, to dealing with the aftermath, to starting a non profit to help others learn about it. All in one year. I can not believe all the emails I get from people all over the world not just the US but the world that have been affected by Lemierre's in some way.

I do want to thank all of you that send me your stories, comments and especially the questions. I would still believe everything on the Internet about this being such a rare disease if it wasn't for all of you who have shared your stories with me. I no longer believe this is a rare disease I know believe this is a disease that Dr's and so many other people out there have never heard of. And they want to learn everyone always asks me the same questions, what are the symptoms?, what is it?, what does it do to your body and how do you get it? Now we can answer all of those questions and more on our new website. lemierresyndrome.com

Shortly we will be working with Dr. Centor. He has years and years of knowledge about this disease and he is willing to share what he can with us to fight this thing and teach Dr.'s about it so it can be diagnosed and treated faster.

We have lots of fundraising events planned one of them is just next week. It is not really a fundraiser just a way to remember Justin close to the one year anniversary of when he received his angel wings! We are having a Benefit Dinner / Prom. Anyone in the St. Louis area is still welcome to come please email me. The cost is $30 per person.
Hopefully we will be holding a Lemierre's walk sometime in Sept maybe around his birthday, we have a golf outing planned for Sept too!

I will keep all of our events updated on the Contact Us / Events page at lemierresyndrome.com

Justin I heard a song the other day, of course by Rascal Flatts you know me I love them!! ;0) Anyway it had the most perfect lyrics every single word they sang reminded me of you and how much we MISS and LOVE you!!!! I won't type out the whole song but I have to tell you this one part! I'm sure you have heard me sing it to you a million times already! The name of the song is "Forever" there are about 4 other songs on their album that remind me soo much of you

"I miss you so much, your light, your smile your way & everything about us! Though your gone, your still here, in my heart in my tears. Yeah you sure left your mark you were just getting started. It wasn't long enough together but it was long enough to last forever! "

Love to all!

Tammy

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone!!
This was the last Holiday we had with Justin.
Justin went to the hospital April 16th last year.
I remember telling my mom that he will be ok, he just needs some rest and good meds. Thinking he had pneumonia but I knew after just 2 days something was seriously wrong!
So much has happened since then.
I received our official noticed from the IRS we are a 501 (c) (3) non profit corporation.
Thank you to everyone that has supported us and helped get our name out there.
Speaking of the website we have a NEW ONE!!!!!!
www.lemierresyndrome.com
Pass it around to everyone.
I have received 4 new Lemierre's stories in the past 2 weeks. A few of them were at least 2 hours away from St. Louis. Thank you so much for sharing your stores and experience with me.
If you want to come to our first benefit dinner May 1st please send me your address!
sunflwz2@yahoo.com

Thank you!

Love,
Tammy

We will never forget you baby brother! We will always love you and you will always be in our heart. Cruz told me the other day he misses you and I told him to talk to you that you listen you just can't talk back. He says he can't wait to see you again!! Allen reminds Cruz of all the fun times you had like last year at Grandma and Grandpa's @ Easter wrestling around. And bugging you when you had all your friends over. We all can't wait to see you again. WE LOVE YOU
love your big sister!

Short Sleeve T Shirts

I am going to be placing an order for Short Sleeve T Shirts next week. They will be the same design as the long sleeve ones.
They are $8 for S - XL and $9.50 for XXL and up. You can us our paypal check out here in our website or you can mail me a check. If you will be mailing me a check please email me and I will send you my mailing address. I am also going to drop the price of the Long Sleeve T-shirts to $11.00.
THANK YOU!!
LOVE,
Tammy Valencia

Since my last post

Well it has been over 1 month since I last posted here. We have so much going on it's hard to keep up with everything. Hopefully in the next couple weeks our website lemierresyndrome.com will be up and running. It will have lots of information about Lemierre's and what we are doing to help teach the public. I will still post events and updates here on our blog site.



Justin would have been a senior this year at Eureka Senior High in MO. Prom is just around the corner and we have decided to throw a Remembrance Dinner / Prom to remember Justin and help get out awareness of this disease that took him from us. If you would be interested in going please send me your mailing address so I can send you a invitation.
Sunflwz2@yahoo.com is the email address to send it to.

We will also be holding the first Lemierre's Walk sometime in late May or early June. More information will be posted on these 2 events as the Days become closer.

I have found many people effected by this disease on Facebook and Myspace. All I did was search the word Lemierre within these 2 websites and many people popped up. On Face book there was even a support group called "Tears for Lemierre's" and a few groups Saying please pray for ..... they are in the hospital with Lemierre's. Just about everyone of those people on Facebook and Myspace all said the same thing.... "I came down with a rare disease", "the Dr's say it's so rare.." OR " leave it to me to come down with this rare disease" I wish these people would really see how rare it really is not.

We are still working on our very first project in teaching Dr's about this disease. Or getting them to want to learn more about it. I'm in the middle of pricing out the items we want to send these Dr's. We will first begin with Infectious Disease Dr's then go from there. Our first priority is getting our website up and running.

I am also going to be ordering short sleeve T shirts here in the next couple weeks. If you or your family are interested please email me and let me know sizes and I will add you to our list.
Sunflwz2@yahoo.com

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Love,
Tammy

E Script

I'm not 100% sure how this works yet, but from my understanding you request a card from the sponsors listed on the site. ( We have a link to the right of the website.) When you shop at the store you present the card to the cashier, she scans it and then you pay for your total however you prefer. A certain percentage of your sale then goes straight into our checking account. IT'S THAT EASY! You pay nothing. Any one all over the US can participate in our fundraiser. There is also an online mall (the link is to the right of our website). They have many more merchants to chose from here. AND the percentage they give back to us is much more! UP TO 16%! There are merchants like JCPenny's, Home Depot, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Sears, Baby's R US, and many many more.. Check it out again it doesn't cost you a dime.
Thank you for your support!
Love,
Tammy

What's new with us

I am starting to gather infectious disease Dr's addresses. I found a website that lists them out by state. My plan is to send each one of them our brochure and something else to remember us by. It could be a coffee mug or some other item with our logo on it. This will take some time as there are many all across the US. If this disease has effected your family and you would like to make sure your Dr is on this list or you know of a Dr that you think could help in some way please send me their information and I will make sure they are added.
Sunflwz2@yahoo.com
Don't forget we have Long Sleeve T Shirts available. If you do not want to use pay pal to pay for them that is fine just email me and I will give you the address to send the check to.

Thank you!
Tammy

Hidden Valley event!

The event held for us by Hidden Valley this past Sat was amazing! So many people came out and supported us!
We gave out lots of brochures and taught so many people about this disease! Thank you to Hidden Valley, S.O.K.A, Monster, US Cellular, Fox Creek Outfitters, Jennifer with her awesome scarves, All of my family!!!, Z107.7, 1057 the Point, Y98 for the interview!! Everyone that was involved THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!! Amity you are amazing and I love you!
This is really a HUGE help for us! Our first major thing we are going to do as a non profit is send out literature and something catchy to all of these infectious disease Dr's. They are the ones that need to learn about this disease! And because of this fundraiser we are going to be able to do just that!!! I will keep everyone updated on what we are going to send them.
We now have a brochure that answers the different common questions that we have been asked about Lemierre's. If you are interested in receiving some brochures from us, so you can pass around to your Dr or family please email me.
Sunflwz2@yahoo.com
Many families have emailed me telling me they are spreading the word in their area and was curious on how they can help us in this fight.
This is one way that doesn't cost a penny. Email me and I can send you some brochures to pass out to at least 3 Dr's If every one did this it would surely help our fight! Talking about this disease and making our Dr's learn more about it is they way to win!!
Thank you all VERY much and check back soon!
I have added the T shirts to our paypal check out!! When you get your shirt take it and hold it up in the light! You'll get a surprise! Make sure to have a tissue nearby!!
Love,
TAMMY

Z107.7 & 105.7 The Point

Our event is on both of their websites!!

http://www.z1077.com/cc-common/mainheadlines3.html?feed=120074&article=4805317

http://www.1057thepoint.com/Point-Event-Calendar/Details.aspx?ID=107120

This is going to be a great time! Come hang out and help support a good cause. Even if you do not Ski or Snowboard. It is free to come in and hang out!!! Ski and snowboard pass amounts can be found @ www.hiddenvalleyski.com
Thank you!
Tammy

Sat Jan 10th J-Rod Jam @ Hidden Valley

I hope everyone in the St. Louis area has made plans to come out and see us at Hidden Valley this coming Sat!
I have hung flyers @ the Eureka & Fenton St. Louis Bread Co, Solid Rock Cafe in downtown Eureka, at National City Bank at the entrance to Augustine Heights, Fox Creek Outfitters and Schnucks in Eureka too. Please stop by and get one or email me and I can send you one. Pass this flyer around to everyone you know! This is a great thing Hidden Valley and all the other sponsors are doing for us! They include S.O.K.A, Fox Creek Outfitters, Monster, The Point, Z1077, US Cellular, and many more!! There will be a contest "Jib for Justin" @ 2pm and a raffle. We will have T Shirts available there as well as bracelets, decals, ribbons, scarves all sorts of stuff to help us spread awareness of this disease! If you don't Ski or Snowboard that's OK! We will be hanging out in the Lounge as well! And to do that is free!!!!! ORRRR now is the time to learn! They have lesson available!
We will have donation canisters set up and Snowflakes you can purchase and write your name on or a little note to Justin and it will be hung up in the Lodge all year long!
Amity and the staff at Hidden Valley have been absolutely amazing during this tough time so lets thank them and get as many people as possible up to Hidden Valley Sat Jan 10th from 9 am - ???? until we decide to leave! ;0)
Justin will be there in spirit so please bring us your stories if you knew him personally we love to hear them!!
Thank you!
LOVE,
Tammy