As many of you may remember, after games I used to have this tiny sliver of a girl come throw with me on the field. Everyone would look at her and say, "Oh, isn't that cute that she wants to throw". She'd then put her glove on and then amaze everyone with the arm and abilities she had. Extremely fast and accurate. She would put every player in the 45's and 55's and probably to complete shame. Guys would come over and ask if she was my daughter and how did she get that arm?
Well, she isn't my daughter, but a daughter of a very close friend who had passed away. She loves baseball. Because there was not much of a call for girls on baseball teams she turned to softball, eventually becoming the starting shortstop and team captain for Southern Connecticut leading the team in many offensive and defensive categories as a Junior.
She was all set to make a national title run as a Senior until she was hit with a puzzling and debilitating disease - Gastroparesis.
Your stomach is supposed to pump and pulse just like your heart. These pulses help process your food. It is vital to the complete process of digestion and gaining the needed and important daily nutrients from your food. Her stomach has stopped pulsing. It does not process food. She eats, the food lays there and within minutes comes back up. She has undergone so many different exams and procedures. She has a tube directly linked to her intestines that she has to connect a machine in order to get nutrients. She also has many different lines into her that are there to supply important infection fighting medication. These often themselves become infected and have to painfully be removed and placed somewhere else. She frequently becomes dehydrated and has to go to the Emergency Room. Every few weeks she travels to Temple University Hospital to see a specialist, who is trying all sorts of different things to get her stomach to work, including a pacemaker and botox injections.
She has had it rough over the past 3+ years.
On Saturday September 26, there will be a fundraising Golf Tourney at Saratoga Lake Golf Club. This has been put together by her best friend, a former High School coach and Peabody's in Saratoga. I would like to invite you all to participate. Below is the flyer and registration form. This tourney is not only to assist her, but to help fund researchers trying to find a cure for this disease.
