My friend Dia (yes, Dia who sent me chocolate with pop rocks in it!) and I have epic Skype sessions a few evenings a month.  We are in reality supposed to be working on a project when we have them, except often very little work gets done and lots of ridiculousness occurs.  Usually the ridiculousness involves kinesiology-related things and nerdiness and it is fabulous regardless of the lack of work we accomplish. (Related: Dia is awesome, and we are on a mission to volunteer at Camp Asthmatopia in the summer. For real. Possibly].

Last night, we were discussing prepping for my pulmonology appointment today and how I intended to be a pain in the butt questioning about exercise prescription again [except it definitely didn’t happen because I didn’t include it on my list of things to address when I was talking with the clinical nurse, so basically nothing new happened], and how I was going to go in with the ACSM Exercise Management for Persons with Chronic Diseases and Disabilities textbook that I am reading just for fun in the waiting room [I also had a research article on teen asthma education, because I am teaching teens about asthma on Thursday!].

So Dia initiated a challenge in which she would donate $10 to the charity of my choice if I took a picture of the book in the waiting room by the reception desk, and a bonus if I got a picture of it with the old-school spirometer, so I could prove it to her.  [By the way, I freaking owned that spirometer today.]

Here is the bonus:

Soon enough after getting the pictures to Dia, an e-mail popped into my inbox.

A donation has been made to the ASTHMA SOCIETY OF CANADA (at CanadaHelps.org) in your honour.

Kerri, You rocked the ACSM mission. Here is hoping, that we can inspire EVERYONE […] to Get Up, Get Active and Get Involved.

Then I thought . . . why not take this one step further?

If you feel moved, I would love to have you join me on this journey. The Asthma Society of Canada is a non-profit organization striving to improve the lives of people living with asthma through education and empowerment, and encouragement of living active lives with asthma. The TeamAsthma program was launched in 2010 to provide a forum for encouragement of activity as well as advocacy for people with asthma and increase awareness of the Asthma Society to the general public at activity-promoting events through providing athletes with t-shirts to wear at races or other events.

I have created a CanadaHelps page in support of the Asthma Society of Canada with a request for donations to be put towards the Team Asthma.ca program, empowering people with asthma to get active to OWN their asthma!  (I hope to become more deeply involved in this program in the future, so stay tuned.)

Every bit helps, so THANK YOU for taking the time to read this and even consider donating now or in the future, or for sharing the page or this post!