Wednesday, May 1, 2013

**BLOGGER CHALLENGE: Community Faces**

April showers bring May flowers -- 65 roses, to be exact!

May is National Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month in the US, and a Matter of Life and Breath is getting in on the fun. Even better, we want YOU to get in on the fun too. And since you all have been so patiently (no pun intended) reading my ramblings for so many years, I thought it was only fair to give you a break. Or, rather, give you a blog.

I'm super excited to announce a new CF Awareness Month project entitled "Community Faces: Sounds from the Underground." Throughout this month, I will be featuring a series of short, personal guest blogs by members of the CF community. And by "members" I mean, well, all of you. I mean CFers of all shapes, ages, sizes, and gene mutations; I mean parents and siblings and spouses and grandparents and maybe even that nutty cousin you only let out on special occasions; I mean friends, volunteers, caretakers, and support systems; but most of all I mean dreamers, believers, and nutty folks like me who think that everyone has a story and who would like to a second to share theirs with some totally cool people/readers. I mean writers, which of course means all of us.

This project aims to spread awareness and to highlight some of the beautiful Community Faces of cystic fibrosis. We are 70,000 people worldwide coming from all types of experiences, backgrounds, beliefs, and cultures. That's 70,000+ amazing stories of strength, courage, humor, achievements, wonderings, wanderings, and LIFE. I can think of no better way to celebrate CF Awareness Month 2013 than to let some of you all strut your stuff.

So here's the nitty-gritty:
 
Posts should be no more than a few paragraphs in length (blog size) and must be in some way related to life with cystic fibrosis. The rest, however, is completely up to you. You can write about your health, your achievements, obstacles you've overcome, your family, he future of CF research and what it means to you personally, or just your own perspective of life with chronic illness. You can write a funny post, an inspiring post, a memorial post, a hard post, or any other sort of post. The only rule is that the tone MUST be respectful of others, and please be mindful that I try and keep the language on this blog reader-friendly. 

Please email your story along with your name (first or first/last is fine), age, a picture (need not be CF related), and a couple of your personal "CF stats" (examples could include age of diagnosis, Great Strides team name, mutation combo -- be creative) to me at:

matteroflifeandbreath@gmail.com (NOTE: there is no "a" at the front). 

And just like that, we can write the next chapter of CF awareness together. Happy writing, beautiful people!

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