A Year Later, Giving Back

A year ago I was a patient at the Spinal Cord Injury Unit of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. I have written several times about that in this blog. To recap.

Last year, the day before Halloween, I could not stand up to rise from bed. After many years of living with the lifetime effects of polio, which I had as a child during the last big epidemic of 1953, and the somewhat more recent arrival of arthritis, I needed help.

That help came from the wonderful team of professionals at Rehab 1, as the Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Unit at Valley Medical Center is known. There I was cared for with much kindness and outfitted with new durable medical equpiment and taught a whole range of new skills. For the very first time in my life, I was given the sense that living with disability for so long and simply caring for myself, was an accomplishment. It is one that I celebrate everyday now as I use my beautiful power wheel-chair, more valuable than a sports car to me, in place of the old manual chair and wooden crutches that had been my daily companions for decades.

Now, for the first time in many years I am doing simple things like exploring the neighborhood, joining a friend for coffee or lunch, going for a haircut (by myself!), or shopping in a physical store instead of only online. Now, I am living my life as a real person, instead of a virtual person. Having the freedom to do this is lovely.

I want to give back to the people who have helped me so much to continue to help their patients. So I have the following fundraiser to offer.

I am a Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultant. For the Fourth year in a row Mary Kay will donate one dollar from the sale of each of its three special Beauty that Counts™ lipstick shades that sell between Sept 16th and December 16th, 2011. I plan to match this for each of these lipsticks that I sell with $1 to Valley Medical Center Foundation for use in the Spinal Cord Injury Unit.

I will also donate one dollar from each of our hand creams that I sell for the same purpose. We have two hand cream fragrances, Peach and Fragrance free. Either of these would make a very nice hostess gift, stocking stuffer, gift exchange present or other small present. Consider buying a few extra to use as presents during the winter for non-holiday occasions.

Please help me to give back and to build my Mary Kay business by buying one of these lipsticks or hand creams for yourself or as a gift. I will, of course, be happy to show you more from our line of excellent products. Thank you so much.

You may order directly from my Mary Kay website http://wwwmarykay.com/margueritemanor/default.aspx