



Here is just a rough of the logo I'm working on. I want the dog to look like it's in motion, moving down from the PARS step. Any thoughts on the dog wearing a baseball hat or ref jersey?

Communication goals of the poster are:
· To let youth athletes know about PARS
· To raise awareness in families and communities
· To let them know it is painful and preventable and can be treated
· To keep children active
· To promote healthy bones all their lives
· To let them know they’re not alone if they are suffering
· To give them something to think about and to talk about
I want my viewers to:
· Understand that fractures are broken bones
· PARS is a serious fracture that goes undiagnosed/misdiagnosed
· Know they don’t have to suffer from this
· Want to learn more about growing healthy bones
· Talk to their families and friends about PARS
· Stay active
· Get involved in spreading awareness about the fracture
Ideas for a 5th project:
· Client is already doing Tee-shirts
· Rub-on tattoos
· Stickers!!!! Bones and Scottie dogs! <3>
· Bumper stickers
· Pencils/Pens
· Note pads
· FLASH GAME where the Scottie dog plays sports and grows healthy bones!!!! (JK)
· Folders (For kids to put their assignments in)
· Rulers
· Stencils? To do their own Tee-shirts/bags. Iron-ons?
· Comic book?
· COLORING BOOK with the adventures of SCOTTIE the dog (lame?)
· Those… awareness bracelets…?
· SILLY BANDS OF THE SCOTTIE DOG
· Keychains/phone chains
Three years ago I was an eighth grader at Mildred E. Strang Middle School in Yorktown Heights, New York. At thirteen years old I was an avid athlete. I held every track record for the school, both boy’s and girl’s, and was playing basketball with the top high school and even collegiate players in the area. I pushed myself to and past my limits every day, never giving myself a break. By the spring of that year my body was breaking down and during one basketball game it snapped (literally).
My team was down six with seven minutes left in the second half when I pulled down a rebound. I jumped up for the ball but when I landed I felt something snap- pop- break. I tried running up the court but every step I took sent a searing pain from my lower back down into my leg. It was the first time I had ever cried on the court. My coach took me out right away. The trainer rushed to our bench; he told me to stretch and put heat on my back. He believed I had pulled a muscle. But as I was carried to my car and sent to the emergency room later that night, I realized there was no way this was a pulled muscle. I had broken bones in the past: both my wrists, a couple of fingers, but never had the pain been this bad. I prayed it was nothing serious.
The doctor initially found nothing seriously wrong, and ordered a month of no exercise. A month later, I returned to the season loaded up on painkillers and Bengay, the same searing pain running down my leg. I played one of my best games that year but can hardly remember it; I was in too much pain. My father took me to more and more doctors, trying to figure out what was wrong, but they all said the same thing: that they couldn't find anything and that I should probably just get weekly massages until the pain subsided. But it didn't. Finally, a doctor informed us that I had an inoperable tumor in my spinal canal that was the cause of all my pain. The doctor told me there was nothing he could do, that the worst-case scenario would be paralysis. My father refused to believe it and took me to yet more doctors, who all told us the same thing. They told me that unless I became paralyzed, I could continue to play as long as I could deal with the pain, that I couldn't make the condition worse. So I kept pushing through it.
That summer was one of the most painful for me. I woke up and played basketball every day, with my friends, with my teammates, but the pain never went away and I began dreading having to even walk. There were days when the pain was tolerable and days I couldn't get out of bed. I had to give up soccer because it was too painful to kick the ball; I had to give up running. All I had left was basketball and even that made me cry. Fall soon came. I was entering my first year of high school, and all I dreamt about was making the high school basketball team before it was too late. I woke up every morning to practice by myself, getting ready for tryouts. Finally the week in November came. Tryouts for the '07-'08 varsity basketball season began and I was planning to make it as a freshman, as proof to everybody that a five foot white girl could compete with the best and to prove to myself that I could get through this pain. But as the weeks went on things only got worse. The pain became intolerable, but I had no choice but to play.
Shortly thereafter I was fitted for a full body cast and then ordered to 2 months of absolutely no activity. After this confinement I returned to sports. A year passed and I felt fully recovered, but something was still wrong. July 2009 I was rushed back to the hospital after collapsing on the court. After an injection of morphine and another MRI I heard devastating news: because of the false diagnosis and the many months playing on a broken back the two bones had not been able to heal. They had healed with fibrous cartilage rather than with bone and thus continuing to play basketball had put too much stress on the fracture site, and the bones re-broke. The doctors claimed there was nothing they could do unless I was willing to consider surgery.
I began the 2009-2010 school year at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York: with dreams of a new, pain-free start and a chance to get the years back physically that I had lost. However, on completing the soccer season and half of the basketball season the pain became to great. The surgery was scheduled and I began to mentally prepare for three months of rehab.