Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association
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  1. #1
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    Default Think of the Children benefit match

    Match Date: April 26-28

    The Lewistown Pistol Club is proudly hosting the 2013 Think of the Children Match.


    This match is being held as a fund raiser for The Prayer Child Foundation.
    This is going to be an IDPA sanctioned match consisting of 10 stages held over the April 26-28 weekend. Friday will be staff only. Saturday will have a morning and an afternoon session, and Sunday will have a morning session. Each session will have space for 40 competitors. Registration will be handled through the North and East Pa IDPA scores website.
    Click here to register now.

    Watch our club website for any updates.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Think of the Children benefit match

    We'd like to thank our first match sponsor UniqueTek



  3. #3
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    Default Re: Think of the Children benefit match

    We'd like to thank Singer Scents for signing on as a match sponsor.

    Last edited by IV_Warrior; February 22nd, 2013 at 09:47 AM.

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Think of the Children benefit match

    We'd like to thank Brilliant Backstraps for joining as a match sponsor.




    Also, we're currently up to 78 registered competitors, there's still room for you, too.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: Think of the Children benefit match

    I wanted to share the story of a central PA family that was helped by The Prayer Child Foundation.


    On December 9, 2012 at 2:00am Jazzlene woke up and came over to Justin and
    I's bed. She said she didn't feel good and that her legs hurt. I felt her
    head and she did have a fever so I gave her some Tylenol, put her in bed
    with us and rubbed her legs. As the day went on she got progressively worse.
    The fever would not break and by night fall she could hardly walk. First
    thing Monday morning I called our doctor's office. They essentially did
    nothing but a urine culture and told us it was a virus and sent us home.
    That night Jazz still had an ongoing fever and leg pains. I started to cry
    telling my husband I don't know what is wrong, but something is seriously
    wrong. I know it...I can feel it...the doctors are wrong. By Wednesday
    December 12 she could not walk or even sit up. I called the doctor's office
    back and her urine results were negative and I told the doctors about how
    she was getting worse, so they told me to bring her back in. We saw a
    different doctor this time. She did an exam and thought it was Jazzy's hip
    and not her legs bothering her, so she ordered an x-ray. While we were in
    getting an x-ray the doctor came back and told me she was sending us for
    blood work as well. I asked her since I had to go to the hospital to get the
    blood work done could we also get an ultrasound to see if there is a fluid
    collection around Jazzy's hip. She said sure. She also told me Jazzy's case
    was puzzling and she would feel better if she referred us to an orthopedic
    pediatric specialist. I said that is fine I would like some answers and get
    Jazzy better. That night we went to the hospital and got blood work done as
    well as an ultrasound. Her blood work came back within the normal range but
    the ultrasound showed a small fluid collection, so off to Hershey we went
    first thing Thursday morning.

    The orthopedic pediatric doctor did an exam and sent us for some more test.
    It was a very long day that consisted of x-rays, ultrasound guided hip
    aspiration, and an MRI with sedation. That night we were admitted to Penn
    State Milton Hershey Hospital. When we got up to the room we got a phone
    call from the orthopedic doctor and she told us that Jazzy either had an
    infection or Leukemia. They were still waiting on one lab result. A hour
    later the oncology/hematology doctor came in and said the results of Jazzy's
    blood smear showed Leukemia, but they did not know what type. In order to
    find out they have to do a bone marrow biopsy and lumbar puncture. Meanwhile
    Jazz was on all different kind of medicines and getting blood draws.

    Friday December 14 we were sent down to the OR for the procedures. That
    afternoon we met with 3 different doctors and they told us Jazz had Acute
    myelogenous leukemia (AML). This is a rare aggressive form of cancer and in
    order to treat it we have to stay aggressive. Her treatments last 4-5 weeks
    at a time. The first 8-10 days she gets 3 different type if chemo meds. Then
    we wait for her blood counts to drop to zero then bounce back so we can
    bring her home for a few days then we are back at it again. Before each
    round of chemo Jazz has to get a bone marrow biopsy, lumbar puncture, and a
    chemo injection into her spine. We began our first round of chemo on
    December 17.

    Everything was going as well as could be expected, but on Christmas Eve her
    broviac line decided to stop working so on December 27th we headed back down
    to the OR for another line.

    On January 16, 2013 we got to bring her home for the first time in a month.
    We all were ecstatic!! On the 22nd we headed back down for the bone marrow
    biopsy, chemo injection, and lumbar puncture. Everything went well and we
    got to come home. We had to wait on the results to see if Jazz was low or
    high risk. ( low meaning she is responding to treatment well and little to
    no leukemia left or high not responding well and need to change coarse of
    treatment) On January 25, 2013 I called the doctor and she informed me that
    Jazz was low risk which means 3 more rounds of what we did the first cycle!!
    We celebrated with not one but two birthday parties...Jazzy turned 3 on
    January 28, 2013. That same day we were admitted to start round 2.

    We currently finished up round 2 and are getting to start round 3. Jazz is
    doing well and her spirits remain high. Justin Jazzy' dad currently
    unemployed, so he stays with Jazz 24/7. I'm currently 32 weeks pregnant with
    another little girl so I had to go back to work not only for insurance
    purposes but so I could save my maternity leave as well to be with both
    girls.

    Nothing can prepare any parent for the news that your child has cancer. This
    came as such a shock to us. We put her to bed one night a perfectly normal,
    healthy, little girl and the next morning our entire world was flipped
    upside down. If it was not for the love and support that we have received I
    think this journey would be much harder.

    Justin, Jazz, and I would like to thank everyone and all the organizations
    out there like prayer child who have helped us out financially during this
    trying time. It makes it easier to focus on getting Jazz better. We pray
    each and everyday not only for Jazzy's to make a full recovery but for
    everyone we have met along the way. Prayer Child Foundation you are a true
    blessing.

    Thank you,
    The Jazzlene Inch Family

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Think of the Children benefit match

    We'd like to thank Shooting Sports Academy for sponsoring the match.


  7. #7
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    Default Re: Think of the Children benefit match

    We'd like to thank Shooter's Connection for sponsoring the match.


  8. #8
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    Default Re: Think of the Children benefit match

    I recently had someone inform me that they couldn't attend the match, but still wanted to help out and was wondering if there was a way to just make a donation. Absolutely. Anyone interested in making a donation can mail a check.

    Make the check payable to: Lewistown Pistol Club.
    Include a note stating it's a donation, to go with the Think of the Children match donation.

    Mail your check to:

    Ron Singer
    ATTN: IDPA
    717 S Wayne St
    Lewistown, PA 17044

    You can also always donate directly to the Prayer Child Foundation. They have information on their website www.prayerchild.org

  9. #9
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    Default Re: Think of the Children benefit match

    First, a reminder that registration closes this week. If you've been considering the match, but putting off registering, now's the time to do it. We're almost to 100 competitors.

    Now, I wanted to share the story of another central PA family that was helped by The Prayer Child Foundation. It's a little long, but please take a moment to read through it.

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------



    Averie’s health issues started shortly after birth. She never gained adequate weight. I started out nursing, began to supplement formula and eventually had to put her on formula alone to monitor her caloric intake. She was first hospitalized in September, 2009 for “Failure to Thrive.” At that time, she was only eating about 5oz a day, which was not nearly enough. While there for 5 days, we worked with the feeding team and found that if we thickened her formula, she could eat ok.
    She began to eat pretty well for a while. We were home for about a month and the feeding team was not happy with the amount of weight she was gaining and wanted her to be eating 24oz a day. She was only averaging 20oz at the time. In November, 2009, the team decided to place a NG tube in Averie with the goal of supplementing her feeds. The idea was to feed her by mouth first and whatever she didn’t eat by mouth, we would put in the feeding tube. That’s not what happened. Almost immediately after getting the tube, Averie stopped eating from the bottle. Additionally, she no longer wanted to eat baby food or cereal. She began to throw up during every feeding, which is something she had never done before.
    We continued to communicate with the feeding clinic and GI departments. We also began working with neurology. Averie had many tests including a swallowing study, blood work, urine tests, sweat tests, upper GI, GI scopes, PH probes, EKGs and a test for SMA Type 1. Everything came back either negative or normal. Though we were happy for these results, we still wanted answers.
    Gradually, Averie became weaker and weaker. We noticed she wasn’t meeting her milestones. She wasn’t holding her head up and had very low muscle tone. No one knew which came first, the low muscle tone or the failure to thrive. Averie continued to struggle with every feed and began to lose many of the milestones she had met (rolling and reaching for things). She became less active and just wasn’t her normal happy self.
    On December 14th, 2009, we decided to take her to the ER. She was life-flighted to the children’s hospital in Danville, PA. She tested positive for RSV. Doctors there said she was the healthiest RSV baby they’d ever seen and began treating her feeding issues. On December 16th, she was having a stomach emptying study and had a seizure caused by the contrast used in the test. She was sent to the PICU and remained there for the next 2 weeks. During this time, several specialists examined her and recommended tests such as EEG, MRI, CAT scan, another PH Probe, spinal tap, ultrasound of the heart and ENT testing. Again, thankfully, everything was normal.
    Doctors said that they were convinced that she was refluxing and that was causing the feeding problems. They couldn’t find anything else wrong. After careful consideration, we decided to listen to the doctors and Averie had a Nissen Fundoplication. This would prevent her from refluxing and throwing up. She also had a G-Tube placed. Things seemed to be looking up. We began to feed her through the G-Tube. She still didn’t tolerate feeds well though. She was getting 3oz in 1 ½ hours. We went home on January 6th, 2010.
    After a week at home, feeding began to become miserable. Averie gagged and wretched no matter how much we slowed feeds. We put her on continuous feeds of 1oz per hour. Additionally, she had completely lost all of the motor control she had gained back. On January 19th, I called the surgeon and doctor with her while in the hospital. They wanted to see her right away. The next day, I took her in. The surgeon said everything looked good with her surgery sights. The pediatrician at the hospital admitted her any way because of her rapid decline. He felt that she had a metabolic disorder and needed to be seen immediately by the metabolic clinic in Philadelphia. That evening, we were transferred to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia by ambulance.
    Once here, things happened very rapidly. Averie was admitted to the Integrated Care Service floor. Here, a team of doctors work with children with complicated medical issues. Together, this team works with multiple specialty areas to try to diagnose and treat these children. Thursday morning (the 21st) lots of specialist visited Averie including PT, OT, Speech, the Metabolic team, and the Neurology team. Almost immediately, metabolic disorders were ruled out. They said Averie was too “with it” to have a metabolic issue. Everyone seemed to feel that whatever was going on with Averie was definitely neurological. The ICS team recommended Dr. Carsten Bonnemann, a neuromuscular specialist. Friday, the 22nd, Dr. Bonnemann saw Averie and decided she needed a muscle ultrasound. Immediately, based upon the findings and her motor ability, he felt very confident that she had Spinal Muscular Atrophy with Repertory Distress. This was devastating news for us. We would have the final blood test back in a week. That night, Averie took a turn for the worse. She began having breathing difficulties, a symptom of SMARD. She was put on oxygen and began receiving oxycodone for pain relief.
    Tim and I knew what having SMARD meant. Most children with this disease don’t make it past 6 months of age. Averie was 7 months old. The fact that she had taken such a turn overnight was also scary. Doctors began asking questions I never thought I would have to answer. After talking, we decided that we no longer wanted Averie to suffer. We ordered all invasive procedures and activities, including rectal temps, stop. We wanted her to be as comfortable as possible. We also decided that we wanted to take her home where she could be at peace and surrounded by people who loved her. Hospice care was set up and an ambulance was booked to take us home.
    Upon discussing our decisions with the Attending Physician, we were told that Averie wasn’t strong enough to make the 3 hour journey home. She didn’t want her to pass away on the side of the highway, in an ambulance. We called all of our family in to say their goodbyes that night. We also began to take pictures like crazy and make footprints, handprints and do all of the other things we thought we would get to later. As difficult as it was, we tried to keep our emotions in check when holding or playing with her. We only wanted her to remember us smiling and happiness. We didn’t leave her side.
    Miraculously, Averie began to get some of her strength back. On Monday, Dr. Bonnemann came to see her and was surprised and this development. He was no longer 100% sure it was SMARD. Knowing our plans to get her home, he asked if he could run a couple of tests to check for CIDP and Guillian Barre Syndrome, both treatable diseases. We said yes. The first test was an x-ray of her diaphragm. Children with SMARD have a deformed diaphragm. Her diaphragm was normal and unaffected. The next test was an EMG. This test would check to see if there was both sensory and motor involvement with her muscle weakness. In children with SMARD, there is only motor involvement. Averie had both. Both tests were not consistent with SMARD.
    Though we were excited by this news, it was a cautious excitement. We were too afraid to get our hopes up for fear of being let down again. We decided to stay until the final SMARD test results would be back. The doctor suggested muscle, nerve and skin biopsies in order to test for the other two diseases. He also wanted an MRI of her spine to see the level of damage to the nerves. We agreed to the testing with the feeling that if there was any possibility of her having a treatable disease, we wanted to know for sure. We asked that the tests happen consecutively to minimize the pain she would have and avoid anesthesia twice.
    In the meantime, Averie continued to slowly improve. The following Friday, we received a miracle. Averie's test for SMARD was negative. However, there was still something majorly wrong with our precious baby. We would spend the next 6 months at CHOP trying to find the appropriate treatment.
    While there, Averie’s breathing became more labored. She was put on C-PAP, then Bi-PAP, and finally she received a tracheostomy. At this point, she was dependent upon a ventilator to breathe. As doctors felt that whatever she had was surly treatable, we felt that we must do all that we could to help her. I spent every moment that she was hospitalized by her side. Her dad visited on the weekends and had to work during the week.
    The last week of August, 2010 sort of felt like that light at the end of the tunnel that everyone was telling us about was a freight train. We got some bad news. Averie had a gene mutation that has never been seen before. There were 2-3 other children in the world with similar gene mutations that had symptoms similar to Averie. I believe one child was able to walk at 4-5 years of age. However, Averie had the worst nerve demyelination that they’d ever seen. None of the other children were ever as bad as Averie was then. Dr. Bonnemann said that this is something that happened when the cells first began to split during development. It is not something that Tim and I passed on to her. The myelin never fully formed around her nerves. They believe that she then got an infection which sparked CIDP. This caused her to get worse very quickly. The initial plasma exchange worked because it took care of the CIDP. At this point, the underlying disease process had taken over. In similar cases, children have fluctuated, just as Averie had in the past, then plateau and then begin to deteriorate. That’s when they develop respiratory issues.

    Averie had made no improvement since March. There is no treatment for what she had. There was nothing more that could be done. Because of the rarity, it was difficult to give us a prognosis. But, we did know that she would not get any better. Her respiratory status was unpredictable at that point. She became completely vent dependent. Because she was not bearing weight and had received high doses of steroids for a long period of time, her bones were very weak and broke even with diaper changes.

    Upon receiving an official diagnosis, our goals for Averie and as a family changed. We were no longer trying to wean her from the vent. We were, however, weaning her from other medications that we now know were not helping her. Our goal became making her as comfortable as possible. We did not want her in any more pain. She had truly been through enough. Because nothing more could be done for her at CHOP, we decided to take her home. We didn’t know for sure how long we may have her. But, while we did, we are going to cherish every moment and every breath she took. We returned home on July 14th.

    Though this is not the answer we were hoping for, you never want your child to have a problem that’s never been seen before or is untreatable, our hope is that because of what Averie has been through and what has been learned in the course of all this, maybe someday, we’ll be able to help someone going through something similar.

    Averie did continue to become weaker after arriving home. On November 8th, 2010, Averie took her last breath. She was in my arms with her daddy and big sister by her side holding her hands. We were surrounded by a room full of people who loved her greatly.

    Without the aid of the Prayer Child Foundation, I may not have been able to stay in the hospital with Averie for as long as I did. We had been a two income family and were down to one. I can’t imagine having to leave her side, especially three hours from home. However, the Prayer Child Foundation helped make that happen.

  10. #10
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    Default Re: Think of the Children benefit match

    We'd like to thank Gun Goddess for sponsoring the match.


    We'd also like to thank Bayou Bullets for their match sponsorship.


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