Greetings to you all, it is still sunny and warm here in Wellington but we feel concerned for various places around NZ with the flooding and land slides. I hope that your all coping well with what ever comes your way and I hope that you stay safe.
We have been saddened by the loss of one of our members Graham Aamodt here in Wellington, it was a sudden unexpected death. It has been a sad time, as he was a very jolly fellow.
There will be a memorial notice later in this newsletter.
We launched the podiatry survey on the 13th of February. There has been quite a bit work involved with this, from various people on our committee and Professor Rome who is the Professor of Podiatry at AUT .
Professor Rome has more than 25 years of experience within education. His research focus is on long-term chronic foot conditions, specifically in inflammatory arthritis. He collaborates with rheumatologists in New Zealand, USA, Singapore and the UK. We were lucky enough for Professor Rome to check our survey, and to offer advice.
A special thank you to all of you who contributed to the development of the survey.
Our main objective for the survey is to gain as much information as possible to put a good case together to lobby for free and improved foot health care for scleroderma patients. This should bring us in line with the diabetes patients who receive three free visits a year.
This a big please to ask all of you to fill in the survey. This will help us all, and improve our quality of life. I have put together a few words on foot care, later on in this newsletter, to at least give us a good start.
Wellington started with their first meeting on the 10th of February. It was nice to see our good friends from Palmerston North Catherine, Martine and Peter, to come and support our group.
We have been very fortunate this year as we have a woman by the name of Julius Ikitogia. Julius has offered to run in the Wellington Marathon to fund-raise for Scleroderma NZ Inc and to also help raise awareness. This will be part of our World Scleroderma Day awareness campaign.
Gordon and I will be walking the half Marathon as support for Julius and I think there will be a few more of us too.
I won’t commit any one else by naming names 🙂
I am also trying to get the Capital and Coast staff and Hutt Valley Hospital staff to join in and run, to help fund-raise and raise awareness too.
The event will take place on the 1st of July, Fingers crossed for good weather.
Mean while, I hope you are all keeping as well as you can and getting out and about.
Best Wishes
Dianne and Gordon