September 30, 2008 --

The Conquer Chiari Walk Across America in Urbana Ohio was awesome and for the first year and being in a small town, the turnout was excellent! I believe there were about 80-100 people there walking, helping, or just hanging out to get to know one another.

The Walk started out a little earlier than planned because people were anxious to get there earlier than the start time to ensure they got their shirts! This was not a big surprise as I would have wanted a shirt myself but this caused the day to get off to a quicker start than I anticipated! Either way, the walk started off with handing out name tags, goody bags, balloons, water, and a chance to visit the information table where the 2008 proclamation from Governor Strickland was on display. Everyone sat around for the time it took for registration and to give people a good opportunity to talk and share stories and also to take pictures! There were people all the way from Cleveland to Kentucky that were there! Our youngest Chiarian; Kaleb was young enough to still be pushed in a stroller and I learned that he was due for decompression surgery on October 16th. I believe that I met a total of 6 other Chiarians that day and learned that I lived within 20 miles of one lady who also had Chiari. I knew there were people with Chiari but it was a surprise to meet one so close. Since finding out that I have Chiari it has been difficult to find other Chiarians close by my home.

Well, the walk started at 1:00 and the walk took approximately 40 minutes which was much shorter than I anticipated because I had taken the walk with my family and we took an hour but we also took our children and 2 dogs! When the walkers arrived back to the meeting area people sat around and shared stories and took more pictures. I feel that the walk was a great success because the awareness was spread even further and I was so surprised when a friend of mine online emailed me when I got home to tell me that there was a Chiari walk right near his home in Pennsylvania!! The world is much smaller than we think and I believe that if we continue our efforts and have even more states next year that the word Chiari will no longer be a word that is questioned; What is that??? I was able to get a small piece about my walk in our local paper and several online calendars but the neatest for me this year was being on the radio the night before to announce the walk. The greatest part was hearing the word “Chiari” out loud in a public message. That to me was the highlight of preparing for the walk because I knew that people would hear this word (it was said by me, repeated by the DJ and again confirmed by me…so said 3 times out loud! Lol) and wonder what Chiari was and hopefully enough to want to look into it.

The organizers all around the U.S were a great team and I had the pleasure of working with great minds and wonderful hearts! I felt very fortunate to have such a good team who was so excited and so hyped to get the awareness out there! I am very proud of all of us and very thankful to all those who came to our walks and those who helped out in anyway they could! Thank you so much! Together…spreading awareness…one step at a time.

-- Carrie Marenberg

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