Dear Military Community Members of DailyKos (and all other passersby),
A member of our community is in serious need of some morale building. Luckily, here at DailyKos, we have a wonderful member who specializes in morale, Sara R. She is busy assembling a quilt to send to Jester, an Afghanistan Veteran who is undergoing treatment in US military hospital.
We need two things from you.
We need you to write a message of support.
Then, if it is within your financial ability, we need you to help donate some funds to cover the cost of the quilt. I am offering to match the first $100 donated today.
More below the fold.
Don't know Jester very well? I bet you know Keori, his fiancee. Here's what she wrote about the love of her life:
Jester was driving an MATV, an armored vehicle, in a convoy in Marja on April 5th. The vehicle hit a roadside bomb. Because of the leg room, Jester was driving with his left leg straightened rather than bent. The concussion wave from the bomb went straight through the armor and shattered his left leg before throwing him through the dash. He had to unbuckle his flak jacket and crawl on his back over the radio mount out through the back pass and onto the waiting litter. In addition to the shattered limb, he suffered a major concussion, and will always have short-term memory problems because of it.
In the year since the blast Jester and his medical team have worked hard at limb salvage. Fourteen surgeries have finally helped the bones re-knit themselves. Jester has suffered multiple infections at the site, one nearly killing him after the bone graft from a cadaver donor went bad. He has dealt with life-threatening blood clots due to the extensive vascular damage in the leg. He has been on blood thinners for 7 months, and nearly died twice. His lungs are spotted from the blood clots having traveled from his leg to his lungs. The nerve damage means he experiences chronic debilitating pain and severe edema from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). He has spent this past year either in a hospital bed or at home on convalescent leave, his mother his primary caregiver.
It's understandable that the process of healing is full of ups and downs, good days and bad days. Sometimes, just knowing that other people are pulling for you can be enough to help you find that good day again. Let's all be a part of helping Jester. You can leave your words of support in a comment below and I will make sure that Sara R. knows about it. She will write your message in archival ink and include it in a lovely quilt that Jester can wrap about himself or lay across his bed. It will serve as a daily reminder that the folks at DailyKos care.
Sara would like a total of 68 messages - we have more than 100 people following our group - I think we should be able to pull together some messages, don't you? But it means sharing this diary with other members (not everyone checks their stream and not everyone is 'following us'). Recommending the diary doesn't hurt... I know this isn't breaking news but in the scheme of it all, this is about as important as life can get. Especially for a fellow military community member.
Then, if you can pull together a few dollars, please donate at the Paypal link or contact Sara R if you would prefer to send a check. Let me know below that you're donating and I will match the first $100 myself. That means the MCM has the possibility of donating $200 by the end of the day. Every $5 or $10 donation can make a difference (I learned that in 2008).
Hope to see lots of comments today!