"Laughing Matters" by Anne Albritton
19 Aug 2011
At first it started with a pain in my side. Tears started running down my cheeks and I found it hard to breathe. My face felt stretched and sore. I looked around, and every person in the room looked just like me. The noise was thunderous. Almost fifteen hundred people together in a dark room….laughing.
Yes, we were cracking up. I’m discovering that sometimes, when we hear something funny we say, “Oh, that’s funny”, and move on. In this particular situation, you couldn’t just say it. You had to laugh. And laugh we did.
Stop SMA held their annual fundraiser at the Muse Center in Pearl. The entertainment was comedians Brian Regan and Henry Cho. For a few years, my husband Michael and I have been big fans of Brian Regan. We are now big fans of Henry Cho as well. However, the true star of the night was Stop SMA. Jeff Horton and his board have done a wonderful job making the state of Mississippi aware of this awful disease that is claiming precious children. Because they work so hard for their families and other families dealing with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a night of laughter was especially deserved by these wonderful people.
After the touching introduction, Henry Cho took the stage. He is hilarious. Having never heard him before, I don’t know that I expected a Korean with a southern accent. He headlined last year’s fundraiser and has gotten to know the Board of Stop SMA. You could tell he was really happy to be back helping with such a great cause. He joked a lot about his kids, and I think my favorite part was when he said that his son has never won a ballgame but has seven trophies. Most suburban parents today can relate to that!
By the time he introduced Brian Regan, I had already laughed more than I had laughed all week. From the minute Brian opened his mouth to talk, I was beside myself. His first joke about his changing hair color wiped me out, and by the middle of his act I needed tissue and a glass of water. Laughing that hard literally wore me out. It was the most wonderful feeling. Michael and I have talked about how we don’t laugh nearly enough. I’ve seen lots of video of Brian Regan. He did a few of our favorite jokes from previous routines, but mostly it was all material from his new CD. It was fantastic. Everyone around us was laughing just as hard. My brother and his wife were sitting a few seats down from us, and the man in front of him complimented him on how well he enjoyed the show!
We talked a minute more, then moved on out of the way. It was truly one of the best nights I’ve had in a while, and I’ll never forget it. The combination of friends and funny was just what I needed. Stop SMA has a lot of options when it comes to raising money. They could do a fancy dinner, they could bring in a singer or a band, or they could sponsor a 5k or half-marathon. But they choose to do a night of laughter. This choice sends the message that when things are difficult and obstacles seem overwhelming and finding the answers appears impossible, we can laugh. We have to laugh because there is a lot of good in life. So many things can make us want to cry, but laughter teaches us that everything has a bright side. We have a choice in how we view our circumstances. I want to be someone who chooses to laugh. After Saturday night, I felt great. It truly was good medicine.
Written by Anne Albritton
Check us out in Parents Magazine
05 May 2011
Jackson, MS (April 26, 2011) – Stop SMA, a central Mississippi nonprofit organization, was recently featured in the “Power of Parents” section of Parents Magazine May issue. Parents Magazine is the oldest national, award-winning parenting publication in the U.S. and has an approximate readership of 15 million. The publication features articles on children’s health, education, safety and behavior as well as parenting issues and challenges.
Stop SMA was established in 2009 by Jeff and Dee Horton of Brandon after the couple’s daughter Evie was diagnosed with SMA in 2008. A year later, the couple’s nephew, Reese – son of Matt and Cortney McDonald – was also diagnosed. After doing research, the Horton’s and the McDonald’s realized few people, including many medical professionals, were familiar with the disease.
SMA is a genetic disease that weakens the muscles, making it difficult or, in most cases, impossible for a person with the disease to move around and perform routine physical tasks like getting dressed. People with SMA may be able to stand when they are very young, but few ever possess the ability to walk. SMA gets worse over time and is often fatal due to related respiratory and pulmonary complications. SMA is the number one genetic killer of children under two. One in 40 people carry the gene that causes SMA and one in 6,000 babies are born with the disease. SMA can affect people of all races and genders.
“We saw a need to educate the public and the medical community of this deadly disease and to raise money for ongoing research for finding a treatment for SMA,” said Horton, who also serves as president of the organization. “We are very excited about this exposure and the opportunity to educate Parents Magazine readers about SMA. We have already heard from several readers that have spotted our article and the SMA community is thrilled with our efforts to spread awareness.”
Click to enlarge
Written by Staff
We're raffling a 7-night Caribbean cruise
31 Mar 2011
Enjoy a 7-night cruise on Carnival’s Funship “Conquest” on December 4-11, 2011. The voyage is round trip sailing from New Orleans, LA. Destinations include:
- Montego Bay, Jamaica
- Georgetown, Grand Cayman
- Cozumel, Mexico
- And 3 fun days at sea
For more information, check out our official raffle page:
http://www.stopsma.org/cruise/
Written by Blake
Sears Hometown Retail Stores Very Merry Super Sale Event to Benefit Stop SMA and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
17 Nov 2010
Sears Hometown Retail Stores of Brandon and Ridgeland will be holding a Very Merry Super Sale to benefit Stop SMA and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDFR).
The Event will be held at both locations on Saturday, December 4th. Everyone is invited to enjoy door buster deals and enter to win a Sony Blue-Ray home theater system.
Santa photos are at the Brandon location only Friday, Dec 3rd from 4pm to 6pm and Saturday, Dec 4th from 12pm to 3pm. The final drawing for the raffle will be at 5pm at the store in Brandon.
- 2% of all sales on Saturday, December 4 at Brandon and Ridgeland locations go to Stop SMA and JDFR.
- Raffle for Sony Blue Ray home theatre system — $5 per ticket.
- Santa Claus on site at Brandon for pictures — $5 each. 4-6pm on Friday and 12-3pm on Saturday.
Very Merry Sale to benefit Stop SMA and JDFR
Written by Staff
August is SMA Awareness Month
22 Aug 2010
We’re thankful to Gov. Haley Barbour for proclaiming August as SMA Awareness Month! Click here to read the proclamation.
Written by Blake Watson
You did it! $250k for SMA research
01 May 2010
Thanks to the many people who took this cause to heart by voting everyday in March and urging their friends and family to do the same, we are happy to announce that Stop SMA has received $250,000 from Pepsi to fund a year of SMA research. We could not have done this without the support we received from the SMA community, our friends, our family, and even people who have heard of SMA for the first time. You did it. And we are forever grateful.
With the $250k donation, we are funding a coincidentally named research project called STOP SMA. The project is directed by Dr. Kathy Swoboda, part of a research team at the University of Utah’s department of Neurology. We were excited to help with the research at Dr. Swoboda’s office. This is research in the clinical trial phase and it needed funding. Research in this phase is actually getting into the hands of families for potential treatment of their children. Dr. Swoboda is one of the best SMA doctors in the country. To introduce her work is a note from Dr. Chris Lorson, Associate Professor at the University of Missouri’s Department of Veterinary Pathobiology. He is also the Science Director of Fight SMA.
Dr. Kathy Swoboda is a leading SMA researcher and has been instrumental in establishing current paradigms for SMA clinical trials. Her current proposal to FightSMA involving pre-symptomatic SMA children is an exceptionally powerful trial that addresses several fundamental aspects of SMA biology and SMA clinical trial design. Her work is ready and ongoing in the clinic – this grant will have an immediate effect upon SMA children and their families. Additionally, the early indications from this work strongly suggest that Dr. Swoboda’s trial will further support the effort to include SMA in a neonatal screening platform.
The Stop SMA research project (no relation to our organization) has studied the effectiveness of proactive treatment of infants with SMA before the infants began showing symptoms of the disease. In 2003, they began a pilot study using the drug, sodium phenylbutyrate. The results appeared promising and in 2007 they began a formal clinical trial. Enrollment for this trial ended in April 2010. Early results appear promising. One infant with SMA type 1 was able to achieve independant sitting. Two of six children who had SMA type 2 were able to achieve independent walking.
Over the next year, the trial will be completed and the results of the study will be used to plan a larger trial of early intervention of childten with SMA. This study provides a foundation for further studies and is another step towards curing spinal muscular atrophy.
Kathryn J. Swoboda, M.D.
Written by Blake Watson & Jeff Horton