By Michelle Stielper and Tina Mcmullen
It is always good to “B” together; however, NOTHING has felt as sweet as The 2022 Coalition for Hemophilia B Annual Symposium. After two years of virtual meetings, bingo games, and On the Road meetings, we all came together at the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld May 19-22nd.
Many precautions were implemented by the fabulous and exceptionally hardworking Coalition staff to help keep us healthy—COVID-19 tests, masks, and red, yellow or green lanyards indicating each person’s interaction level of comfort. However, this meeting was not short of tapping elbows, high fives, or welcomed hugs. It was an event filled with love and gratitude simply to be together.
As always, the educational sessions and breakouts did not disappoint—men’s and women’s gatherings, breakouts to harness the power of togetherness and strength in adversity, and sessions about being brave and using your voice and story to advocate for yourself, your child, or future generations within the bleeding disorders community.
There were excellent inspirational speeches by Zander Massar, Debbie de la Riva, Natalie Sayer and Kelly Gonzalez, to name a few. There was also an informative presentation by Dr. Sidonio focused on understanding Factor IX’s role in the body. Hope Woodcock-Ross and Dr. Mike Zolotnisky led an infusion class combined with KT tape strategies for protecting joints. The list goes on with meaningful, impactful, and much needed educational programming.
The BioMatrix booth was buzzing all meeting long with a steady stream of contestants lining up for Jeo-Parody, our Jeopardy-inspired game. With the incredibly talented gameshow host, Shelby Smoak, participants answered questions to enter a drawing for an awesome cooking-themed gift basket filled with our BioMatrix favorite family cookbook and bunches of useful kitchen doodads.
For “fun points” and just because, we made it a friendly competition between the ladies and gents.
Each day featured a different themed game board, and we soon found out just how many of our hemophilia B families are diehard Jeopardy fans! Smiles, laughs, and cheers erupted all around as game points were added to the scoreboard. In the end, the gents were close, but the ladies won at the final hour. Girl Power! Congratulations to all our players and especially to the winner of our gift basket.
The Symposium’s final night event is always an evening to remember, but The Bleeders (essentially the Coalition B house band) really outdid themselves this year. Moved indoors due to rain, our own Doc of Rock Shelby Smoak and the whole band brought the atrium of the Renaissance hotel down! No one gets the party going like our bleeder band! Many thanks, guys, for always giving us great tunes to sing along to while we wear out our dancing shoes. When does the album drop?! With top notch music, the party went strong well into the night!
This was truly the greatest Symposium meeting in years, well, because it has been years! We never need a reminder to know how impressive our B community is, but it sure was amazing to “B” together again! Here’s to a great 2022, and we are already looking forward to what the Coalition has in store for Symposium 2023!
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