Powerful December

Hello followers and good day!

As many of you know, I am doing my best to apply myself to promote any educational awareness on meningitis, and last week did not fall short of that. I was off to New York on Monday and on that day I had some media training, followed by an interview the next day with New York 1! All week, I was paired with the brilliant dr. Friedland. He has made large strides in the medical world, and has a centralized focus on preventable disease through vaccination. I don't think I could've asked for a better pairing. The next day, Dr. Friedland and I headed to Fox News in Manhattan to have an interview with Dr. Manny on health. He was a very pleasant man to have an interview with, and I definitely know that Dr. Friedland and I got our message out.

We are very happy to know that this message has gone nationwide. If you haven't seen it yet, please go to our press section on our website to see the whole clip itself. Right after that, we headed to Chelsea for the Soho House where the blogger summit was being held. I was asked, along with Dr. Friedland, to participate, if not lead, a conversation amongst other bloggers who share the same goals: prevent meningitis. At the blogger summit, GSK leaders, bloggers, and other patient advocates were all participating in a roundtable discussion on how to raise awareness and vaccination rates, especially with Meningitis B.  With the time being winter break, I encourage all parents to talk to their children when they come home to be proactive in meningitis prevention.  Parents and students, please start having the discussion with your health care provider on how to receive both vaccines to prevent the five main serogroups of meningitis.

It was an excellent rally, as we saw many people come together to discuss how we could spread the message even more. As far as my concern goes, I got some helpful input from Alicia Stillman(she lost her daughter recently to meningitis) on how to approach our state and county offices in pushing for the meningitis B vaccine availability among all clinics in our state/county because currently, not all offices have it stocked. If you went to your health offices to get the meningitis B vaccine and they don't have it, please send me a message and I'll be sure that your doctor's office will have it in house.  If there was one new message that I learned and want to share, it's that there are two new vaccines to cover the five main groups of meningitis. That is very new, because we have had a vaccine that covered the A, C, Y, and W serogroups but not B. You might've heard more about meningitis B recently in the past couple years, because there have been outbreaks on college campuses across the United States resulting from not being vaccinated against meningitis B. However, the vaccine for meningitis B wasn't available until this year. Which is why it is so exciting to know that all of the five main groups are now covered by two vaccines. 

Here in the state of Texas, I passed a law that made it mandatory for all college students in the state Texas to be vaccinated from meningitis. This law that was passed and then amended in 2011, secures vaccination of A, C, W, and Y meningitis for the students.  When legislation comes back around, you better believe I'll be at the forefront testifying for the second vaccination that is now available.  There is no need to go through meningitis. I was in the hospital for 7 months.  Please let me be the learned experience, so that no one else can endure the pain that I did.

The blogger summit in New York was fantastic, brought positive results, and has really inspired me to advocate in different ways.  In the next coming weeks, I plan to update my website, send personally letters to friends and family that have been my greatest followers, and I plan to start a making of a great fundraiser.  Nothing official yet, but I do plan to have the answers in the next couple of weeks.  Stay tuned and thanks for following.  

Happy holidays everyone!  December really snuck up on us this year, at least for me! I always found December to be the Friday of Months.  Enjoy!  Merry christmas and Happy New Year!  Hello 2016! It's going to be a good year everybody.