The 27th annual PMD Family Support Conference was another huge success! We had 19 families from 15 states and Canada. We had 17 PMD males and 1 PMLD girl, ranging in age from age 1 to 34. Six of these families were new to us this year, but as always, our other PMD families made them feel right at home! We also had several Grandparents with us this year. It is great when the extended families members can join us, it encourages them to see the other families and children. As rare as it is for the PMD parents to meet others facing the same challenges they are, it is even more unique for Grandparents, Aunts, and Uncles to meet others like themselves, trying to support their family members who are caring for PMD children.

This year's T-shirts were pretty cool. They were individually tie-dyed, before we had them printed. Amanda and Patti spent many days banding, dying, washing, drying, and ironing. They turned out great! But it was a one time adventure!

We had several families who came in on Wednesday, so, we did a small group dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe on Thursday. Unfortunately, the only baseball game this year was on Thursday evening, so due to timing we were unable to attend. Hopefully next year their schedule will line up better with our dates.

Friday Dr. Walsh saw patients at Riley Children's Hospital, and on Saturday we had the doctors presentations at the hotel as usual. This year's speakers were: Dr. Karen Moody (Palliative Care), Dr. Larry Walsh (Genetics and Neurology), and Dr. John Stevens (Pulmonary). Dr. Joseph Croffie (GI), was called in for an emergency surgery and was unable to join us, so Dr. Walsh and Dr. Stevens attempted to answer general GI questions. We tried to live stream of the medical presentations, which wasn't very successful but we are hoping to try again next year. Jill Andrews, one of our PMD moms, recorded the presentations for us and we are making them available upon request. Thanks to Jill's friends, Keith and Sari, we had audio equipment to assure everyone could hear the presentations. Our wonderful group of volunteers (Kayleigh, Taylor, Shari, Trinity, Abby, and Abby's friend Allie) provided child care during the medical presentations. For lunch we had Subway sandwiches, and Saturday evening we did our traditional group dinner to Buca Di Beppo. The older guys also took their annual trip to Hooters, complete with pictures and T-shirts! There were small group trips to the Zoo and Children's Museum and many trips to Steak 'N Shake. As always we had many opportunities for visiting and late night chats. Because the conference dates included Father's Day this year we had a couple little special treats for the dads. Sandi Anderson, with her scrap booking talents, assisted the kids with making Father's day cards, and Amanda made candy bar bouquets in Father's day mugs for all the Dad's and Grandfather's. Everyone except Anita and JR Chalupa left by Monday, due to over booking they were bumped. We don't believe that things just happen by accident, the weather took a turn for the worse and they would have likely have ended up stranded at the airport. However, George got them to the airport on Tuesday, and they made it home safe and sound.

Dr. Grace & Don were pre-celebrating their 50th Anniversary, and took some photos at the hotel, complete with Tux!

This year's conference was, as always, a great success. Big thanks for all the generous cash donations, as well as those made thru Amazon by our PMD families and friends! It really helped us stretch our budget. You guys are awesome!

If you would like to view the doctors presentations from the PMD Family Support Conference please send us a message using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the page.

If you would like to make a tax deductible donation for our Annual PMD Family Support Conference you may do so by clicking here.

Special thanks to Jill Fuego Andrews (one of our awesome and talented PMD moms) for creating this video.