USA Thalidomide Survivors in the News
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Excerpt from Chapter 1 – My Prosthetic Life
CHAPTER 1 Who in the hell do you think you are, Laura? Doesn’t everyone have a different idea or opinion of who we are? We are judged by family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers differently, aren’t we? Even those who know us best have their own ideas of who we...
USA Thalidomide Survivors’ 5th “Annual” Conference
“Winners never quit, and quitters never win.” ~ Vince Lombardi Our march to congress in Washington D.C. this year was powerful, fun, productive and exhausting!!! I can’t wait to tell you how successful it was, but first things first! Thank you to the Event Planning...
Finally! A recap of the US Thalidomide Survivors’ 4th “Annual” Conference
Back row: Paul and LorXena Koneczny, Laura Kendall. Front row: Gwen Riechmann and the star of our show, Aragon, on his first big service dog trip. He not only looked mahvelous – he did great! We were missing an important member of our team, Lori Kay. She couldn’t be...
Book Review: WONDER DRUG
This book for me has been 61 years in the making. I am a character in the book — honestly, I really am. And so are a lot of my friends from U.S. Thalidomide Survivors, a nonprofit formed only a few years ago in 2018. This book is us. This book literally helped us find...
Why we had to make “Thalidomide in the USA: the Forgotten Survivors”
The fact that the world still thinks there were no -- or very few -- thalidomide survivors born in the US is still a source of amazement for me. We have done an exceptional job, I feel, of documenting our story in this website, and traffic has increased each month. US...
A 60th anniversary, and “Prescribing Horror” — a week for thalidomide
It has been a week in the thalidomide world. November 27 marked the 60th anniversary of the market withdrawal of Contergan (the German trademark name for thalidomide). This anniversary was commemorated by the German Association of People affected by Thalidomide...
Jan Garrett
My name is Jan Taylor Garrett, and I serve as an at-large member of the U.S. Thalidomide Survivors Board of Directors. I love my husband Dan, kitties, all things purple, and my friends and family. I was born in February of 1962 in Oklahoma City, OK. My disability is...
Introduction
Introduction You can call me "JoJo." My name is Jose Martynov G. Calora. I was born in 1962 in Ithaca, New York, with congenital deformities in my upper extremities. I have short arms, no elbows, and three fingers on each hand. The technical term is phocomelia. My...
My Life in Shorthand — Chapter 5
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MINISERIES I was excited to move to a new place and happy to be back on an Army Base. I later learned that was probably due to the maturity level of Army Brats as they are lovingly referred to by all. After the miserable year of having only 1/2 of...
My Life in Shorthand — Chapter 4
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MINISERIES My sister was not just 8 years older but she was a TALL teenager. i was 4 feet tall when she was 6 feet tall. She kept me tough by wrestling with me, giving me grief if I ate like a slob, and teased me if i wet my pants. She said "they...