Triangle Heart Walk, Sept. 27th

OK, last place I'm posting this. I'm only posting it once, but I'm posting it to 2 different FB accounts and 3 different blogs, so my apologies to those of you who see it multiple times. After today, I'm not going to mention it again, because I don't like asking for $.

This year, I'm participating in the Triangle Heart Walk, which is a fundraiser for the American Heart Association. If you're wondering why I'm doing this, see here (though most of you know the story).

I'm uncomfortable asking for money, so this is the only time I'm going to post the link:

My page for HeartWalk donations is here.

Annoyingly, the online form only seems to let people give in $25 increments; if you'd like to give a different amount, you'll need to print out the donation pdf and mail it--sorry about that. :/

Meanwhile, here are some heart disease stats from WomenHeart:

* Heart disease is the leading cause of death of American women, killing more than a quarter of them.

* Over 213,000 women die each year from heart attacks--five times as many women as breast cancer.

* More women than men die of heart disease each year.

* Women are less likely than men to receive appropriate treatment after a heart attack.

* Women account for only 27% of participants in all heart-related research studies.

* 23% of women and 18% of men will die within one year of a first recognized heart attack; 22-32% of female and 16-24% of male heart attack survivors will have another heart attack within five years.

* 12-25% of female and 7-22% of male heart attack survivors will be diagnosed with heart failure within five years.

* 34.9% of deaths in American women over the age of 20, or more than 450,000, are caused by cardiovascular disease each year.

* Over 166,000 women die each year of congestive heart failure, accounting for 56.8% of all heart failure deaths.

A Change of Heart fanzine now available

This is to announce that my one-shot fanzine, A CHANGE OF HEART, as announced here, is now done and available.

At the moment I can email you a .doc or .rtf, or send you a printed version if you send me your snail-mail address. There will be a pdf version later this evening, and once I have the pdf, I'll send it over to efanzines.com for inclusion there.

Thanks so much to everyone who sent something, and to everyone who helped get the word out, and to my friend Warren for carrying the first batch, still hot off the presses and containing a typo or two, to WorldCon for me.

I got into the WomenHeart Symposium!

Great news--I've been accepted into the WomenHeart Science & Leadership Symposium!

http://www.womenheart.org/programsEvents/programs/national.cfm

It's four days at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and is a fantastic opportunity not only to train to become a champion spokeswoman for women with heart disease but to connect with other women who've been through similar things. I'm really excited. :) I sent my application off, then tried to just put it out of my mind, because at that point the decision was out of my hands.

I was a little nervous opening the big envelope from WomenHeart last night; I cracked it open and peeked in cautiously, saw the word "congratulations," grinned, and only then opened it the rest of the way.