Dusty's Race for Adrenal Insufficiency Awareness

My friend, Dusty Hardman, a runner who also has adrenal insufficiency, is doing a 500K race in July through the state of Tennessee, in the "Last Annual Vol-State Road Race." She is partnering with Adrenal Insufficiency United (AIU) to raise awareness of how to treat adrenal insufficiency in emergency situations. Dusty hosts the Addison's Support blog which contains a gold mine of information about AI that helped me immensely when I cared for Annie.

AIU's goal is to help fire-rescue departments adopt protocols to treat adrenal crises. An adrenal crisis can happen when a person with adrenal insufficiency gets sick, is injured, or has trauma of any kind. You can imagine how important it would be for a paramedic to have the training and medicine to treat this. However, as it stands now, very few states have protocols in place, and even more important, very few ambulances carry the liquid hydrocortisone injection (Solu-Cortef®) necessary to help a person in crisis.

The good news is, as the message has gotten out to paramedics and firefighters, the response has been overwhelmingly positive--they want to help make these changes! I had the opportunity to talk with a number of these good people at a conference a few weeks ago, and again, they're in the business of saving lives--and want to see changes made that will enable them to do just that. What was very helpful, too, is that they pointed us toward the people in their circles of influence who can help us achieve this goal.

So Dusty will be running, people will be giving, AIU will be sharing, and the fire-rescuers will be equipped and ready to save lives. How cool is that?

For more information, you can check out Dusty's website at Addison's Support.