IMPORTANT NOTE FOR EX-US DONORS:
PLEASE USE CREDIT RATHER THAN DEBIT CARDS
Let me know if any difficulties...
Friends in San Francisco and all round the world,
Again this year I continue to raise money for the Brain Aneurysm Foundation in the 2017 Escape from Alcatraz - my fifth.
Our momentum, and your support, just grows and grows.
This year, TeamCindy Alcatraz has doubled in size again, with fifteen athletes jumping off that boat early on Sunday 11 June in one of the world’s most iconic triathlons.
TeamCindy Alcatraz 2017 has a fundraising target of $50,000 this year, in what is the tenth anniversary year of Cindy’s death. This will double what we achieved last year...and one of us is still in the starting blocks, while the rest of the team have already raised $17,000.
Please help me catch up!
I would be so grateful for your support again, for me and for the invaluable work of the Brain Aneurysm Foundation. This an underfunded area of medicine that seeks to prevent tragically young and sudden deaths and life-impairing disabilities. I am active and close in seeing how your funds are spent as a Brain Aneurysm Foundation Board member since 2016.
You can jump in and support me at my fundraising page: http://give.bafound.org/site/TR?px=1074576&pg=personal&fr_id=1640
And I have written up more below for you…on:
- the story as to why I do this
- why the work of the Brain Aneurysm Foundation should be of interest to you
- TeamCindy Alcatraz 2017
...and the research grants into that your 2015 and 2016 contributions funded
Thank you all, again.
Kevin
P.S. i) details for mailing checks at bottom ii) as always, if the cause does not resonate this year, no worries. I don’t want to be unwelcome and email. Just unsubscribe below - I have never looked at this list!
Why am I doing this?
When I was 17, I stood over a school friend that had collapsed on a September evening with a haemmorhage. Warren did not come back. For me, that moment has always been a Kodachrome snapshot as to the fragility of life and our health. And, of how conditions of which we are unaware can instantly kill young and old, like Cindy an athlete in prime “health”. Over the years, I noticed that Warren and that snapshot would most often come to mind in the soaring endorphins of a long run.
TeamCindy honors the life of Cynthia Lynn Sherwin, who lost her life to a brain aneurysm in 2007.
Cindy was a professional trainer and nutritionist seemingly in prime health, out on her bike in training for her first Ironman as a hard-charging athlete. A few days before her death, she told her family she had the worst headache of her life. Her brother was getting married in a few days and she was training for the big race, so she decided to tough it out. Cindy probably had a "sentinel bleed," an early warning signal of aneurysm rupture. Had she been aware of the warning signs of a brain aneurysm rupture and sought medical attention right away, she may still be alive today.
Our Team in the Alcatraz race honors Cindy’s life and promotes widespread public awareness of the dangers of a ruptured brain aneurysm - the sudden and silent killer that took her life and the lives of tens of thousands each year. For me, Warren so often comes to mind in training in particular still today. And each year more and more of you tell of knowing someone afflicted by an aneurysm.
The training and race each year heightens the gratitude I feel for good health, and a fully functioning body and brain (though my chicken legs are a pet peeve in every hill climb on the bike!).
That’s why I keep doing it!
Why should brain aneurysms and the work of the Brain Aneurysm Foundation interest you?
About 1 in 50 people are walking around with an unruptured brain aneurysm. Every 18 minutes, one ruptures. 40% of the time, you will die. If one survives a ruptured aneurysm, they will likely live with significant neurological deficits and disability.
With an aneurysm developing in 1 out of every 50 people, wouldn't it be nice to know who is at risk? And, if you have one, is it likely to rupture?
This is exactly the question Dr. Matthew Alexander at UCSF is looking to answer. Dr. Matt won our Alcatraz research grant in 2016 and is today using the funds raised by TeamCindy last year to examine the DNA of 500 patients with aneurysms. In hearing him speak, I learned that his "big data" approach to the genome is cost efficient and progressing well. It's important to know exactly where your donation is going.
To mail in a donation: please make your check payable to "The Brain Aneurysm Foundation", with my name in the Memo field. And, mail to:
Brain Aneurysm Foundation (Kevin Brennan campaign)
269 Hanover Street, Building #3
Hanover,
MA 02339
United States