Reaching for Cures!
This campaign was dedicated to research, specifically for finding improved therapies and cures for peripheral neuropathy.
The Van Salmans Matching Gift Campaign:
The Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy (FPN) is one of my charities of choice. Why? Because I have peripheral neuropathy and am passionate about our mission. I am confident that this organization will be the driving force to gain more attention and more answers for this disease. FPN reaches for more every day. We are the leader in awareness, advocacy, research, and education for peripheral neuropathy.
As such, I committed to reaching deeply myself, and I started a matching gift campaign which ran from August 1, through September 30, 2023. During this period, I matched all donations made to FPN, dollar-for-dollar, totaling $106,588.52.
Including my match, a total of $213,177.04 was raised for PN research.
Meet Me, Van Salmans:
Allow me to introduce myself—my name is Van Salmans, and I joined the board of the Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy (FPN) in 2019. I joined with the hope of helping FPN advance their mission of finding cures for peripheral neuropathy (PN).
I was diagnosed with PN in 1998. You know, the usual initial tests — EMG/NCV, tuning fork and strength tests. As the disease has continued to progress, I’ve also had muscle biopsies, nerve biopsies, a spinal tap, genomic testing, and IVIG infusions—all confirming the diagnosis of having idiopathic neuropathy, or in medical terms idiopathic sensorimotor poly peripheral neuropathy. In my case, I have a major loss of nerve and muscle function in my calves and feet (complete drop foot) with almost complete numbness as well as some loss of muscle from elbow down through my hands and fingers accompanied by some tingling and numbness in my fingers. And as you might guess, balance is a real issue. I have been wearing ankle foot orthotics (AFOs) since 2013, which enable me to get around and lead a normal life with compromised mobility.
My personal belief and experience are that exercise is the best thing a person can do for physical and mental health – until more therapies and cures for PN are available. Make time to exercise (as best you can) or keep moving at a minimum. I believe that exercise — sitting exercises, biking, stationary biking, walking or just moving in some manner — will at least delay the progression to some degree and may even improve your condition.
My Matching Gift Campaign
I pledged to match all gifts made to FPN from August 1, through September 30, 2023, for the sole purpose of Funding More Research.
The more dollars we raised in this campaign, the more research we could fund, and research will enable us to find improved therapies and cures for you, me, and those who follow us. Only research will enable us to find more therapies and cures. Those who made their gift during this Matching Gift Campaign, they doubled their impact and their dollar went twice as far.Â
With the money raised from this campaign, we at the Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy, advocating for all persons experiencing PN, will work with our Scientific Advisory Board of highly acclaimed neurologists to identify and invest in those research studies which will most likely yield positive results.
Together we made a difference
Thank you, again, to all who supported this campaign.
Sincerely,
Van Salmans