Please Vote! – Wheelchair Kamikaze Nominated for Best Healthcare Blog Award

 
 

I'm proud to announce that Wheelchair Kamikaze has been nominated for "Best Healthcare Blog" in Healthline.com's annual best blog awards contest (click here). The winner of the contest will be decided by the votes of none other than the readers of the nominated blogs.

In fact, the nominations also came from blog readers, though I have no idea who nominated Wheelchair Kamikaze. I was completely unaware that the nomination process had begun, so I swear it wasn't me who proffered the nomination. But some very nice person or persons were kind enough to throw Wheelchair Kamikaze's name into the hat. Thanks, whoever you are. I had my suspicions as to who might have been the culprit, but my mom swears it wasn't her. Still, I have my doubts. When I was 26 years old she submitted a poem I had written in the third grade about how wonderful she was to the local Fort Lauderdale newspaper, which printed it – along with a hideous picture of me at eight years old, complete with coke bottle glasses and hair that looked like it was styled in a blender – on Mother's Day. This was just a few months after I had moved to the area and was just beginning to form a circle of friends. The day it was published was the day I learned how to spell "mortified".

Anyway, Healthline's Best Blog contest is decided by votes, so I'm asking all who appreciate these pages to cast a vote for Wheelchair Kamikaze (click here). As a matter of fact, you can cast more than one vote, since the rules allow for each person to vote daily. So, as they say in Chicago, vote early and vote often.

The voting actually started on November 21, so I'm a little late to the game because I've been engaged in hand-to-hand combat with some new and particularly unpleasant MS related crap. I'm like the butcher who backed into his meatgrinder and got a little behind in his work. Okay, just for dusting off that moldy oldie – which had them rolling in the aisles 60 years ago on the Borscht Belt (click here) – I think I deserve a vote or ten. And just my bringing up something as random and esoteric as the Borscht Belt should also be a vote-getter. Am I not just the most adorable thing… I'm not competitive or anything, but world domination has always been high on my bucket list. Today the blogosphere, tomorrow the world!

Healthline.com is offering a very generous $1000 prize to the winner of the contest. If I do win, half of the prize money will go to a worthy MS nonprofit, and it won't be the NMSS. Hey, here's an idea: I'll run a poll on the blog about which nonprofit should get the donation, on behalf of all of us. Won't that be fun? Voting ends on December 12, and, as I previously said, people can vote each and every day until the end of the voting period.

In all seriousness, writing Wheelchair Kamikaze has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The fact that I've been able to help some of my fellow travelers on this rocky road that we've all been forced to follow leaves me humbled and grateful. The blog has allowed me to meet and interact with some of the bravest, most resilient, and remarkable people I've ever known, each fighting their own personal MS battle with immeasurable bravery and fortitude even in the face of the incomprehensible confusion and fear engendered by the disease. Wheelchair Kamikaze has given me a sense of purpose through my own struggle with the madness of Multiple Sclerosis, and I'm fairly certain I would not have made it this far without the support I have received from readers all over the world, many of whom have offered words of encouragement, kinship, and thanks that have more than once brought me to tears. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

If you care to cast a vote, please (click here). And once again, an immense thank you to each and every person who has helped make Wheelchair Kamikaze successful beyond my wildest dreams. I simply don't have the words to express the feelings I have for every patient, caregiver, and medical professional who has participated in WK these past seven and half years. What all of you have given me is simply priceless. And no contest win or lose will ever change that.

If you do vote, please use the search box on the contest page (click here) to find Wheelchair Kamikaze, as there are 383 blogs in the contest.

Thanks again for your support.

Addendum:  Thanks to everyone who has already voted. Don't forget, you can vote every day until December 12.

I understand there are several hoops you have to go through to vote. First, you need to find my blog among the list of 383 blogs that were nominated. The easiest way to do this is through the search box on the contest webpage, and just search for "wheelchair". This way you don't have to try to figure out how to spell Kamikaze, and the search engine will bring you right to my blog.

After you enter your email address and vote, you need to scroll up the page to find the little "capcha" box to prove you're not a robot. Then you will get a confirmation email on which you need to click a link to confirm your vote.

Geez, guess they must be super worried about voter fraud or something. It's easier to vote for president…