It’s finally here – Carlie and I are in Scotland! As you can imagine, I am writing this pre-trip so I’m not even going to try and guess the excitement of arrival, the frigid temperature, or how humbling this opportunity is for us. My plan is to share our experiences in real time via social media – facebook, twitter, instagram – which you will be able to access even without an account, then recap on the blog once we return. Sound good?

This symposium is easily the most intimidating conference I’ve ever attended. This is the ultimate meeting of the minds, top of the top in their fields, and just the titles of the sessions make my eyes cross. Alas, I’m excited. I’ve never strayed from a challenge, so this is going to be awesome. One of the really cool – cool in a nerdy sense – things that has been prepared for us is this interactive periodic table of MND Research. The entire conference is broken down into categories, and cross referenced by topic. Example, if you click on Pw – People with MND it brings up this:

That’s Me! And Keith! And Bruce! You’ll get to know them throughout the conference, I’m looking forward to working alongside them. Another really cool aspect of this conference is the poster sessions.

“This year, 523 abstracts have been awarded poster presentations. These are split into biomedical and clinical posters. This allows presenters to create an A0 sized poster describing their work and gives them the opportunity to talk through this with colleagues at two poster sessions on Friday and Saturday.”

It’s going to be a full 3 days of learning, sharing, and absorbing. Prayers for endurance, energy, and focus are greatly appreciated. If you see anything on the program that sparks your interest, let me know and I’ll make sure to report out on it for you. If there are any specific questions, comments, or input that you’d like for me to voice on your behalf, please let me know. I’m advocating for us, all of us.