Bon Jour from Montreal!!

Congratulations to all of the wonderful volunteers who made this weekend possible!  It was such a delight to FINALLY meet Sandra, Landon, Christopher, Francine, Bev, Kathleen, Amy, Diane, Florence, Judy, Janet and the many other incredible people with MS who are keeping the education and dialogue going on research into neurovascular diseases.  And what a pleasure to meet and visit with so many from this Facebook community--to put faces (and bodies!) to the names we see online everyday!  You all are so incredibly positive and warm, it was like a family reunion.  It's been a difficult time in the CCSVI research world, and this weekend was a positive infusion of energy, ideas and simple kindness.  Every speaker was passionate, involved and interested in exploring ways to help people with MS and CCSVI to live better lives.   I'll type up my notes later with more specifics and some pics--but I'm enjoying a bite of breakfast before visiting with my Mom.  More coming later this week, promise!

The doctors were terrific--I always appreciate hearing Dr. Bill Code explain the connections to the vasculature that he understands, at a very personal level, as a man living with MS.  And it was a thrill for this research geek to see Dr. Franz Schelling again, and get to speak with Dr. Bernie Juurlink, my hypoperfusion guru :)   Dr. Sclafani was the perfect keynote speaker, because he's seen almost every different type of venous malformation, and his use of IVUS in this process of decoding the venous vasculature has been incredibly important in moving the research ahead. And it was great to reconnect with Anne Kingston, and catch up.

This conference was special, for many reasons, not least of which was the effort to spread this information into the French speaking community.  There were so many wonderful French/English translators involved in this process..and I know Christopher was working incredibly hard to make sure everyone understood each other.  The amount of volunteer man and woman hours that went into making this conference a success cannot be overstated....this took a ton of work, and I was humbled to see the level of involvement from people who are already dealing with their own disease...reaching out to encourage others.

I love the word "encourage"--because in French, we understand that the word heart (coeur) is at the center of our efforts to help one another, and give one another strength.   This is the way forward, and I am excited to see where this international community takes this research, into the future.

avec coeur--

Joan