Will you help me raise $500?

I often look at my copy of Our Hands Can! and every time, it makes me smile and feel stronger. Every time I see the Show Us Your Hands! community poster in my rheumatologist's office, it makes me smile and feel part of a community.

I want more people to have a chance to feel that way.

About a month ago, I told you that our big project at Show Us Your Hands! this year is to find a way to mass produce our wonderful photo book Our Hands Can! and posters so they can be more affordable than print on demand allows. And that means raising funds, so we can make a big order of both the book and the posters. Each of the Directors of Show Us Your Hands! is doing fundraisers with what they've got and what I’ve got is a book.

Until September 30, 2013, 50% of royalties from every single copy of Your Life with Rheumatoid Arthritis: Tools for Managing Treatment, Side Effects and Pain will go to Show Us Your Hands!. That means selling about 250 books if I want to raise $500. Shouldn't be a problem to do that in 14 days, should it now?

When you dream, dream big!

If you don't have a copy already, please buy one. If you have an e-book copy, please consider buying the paperback and vice versa. You can have your own backup copy or you can use it as a tool to raise awareness about the disease and give it someone else. Who? How about…

Most primary care physicians know next to nothing about RA. Buy a copy for your GP, your nurse practitioner or your nurse to help them know more.

Do what Sari did and buy one for your rheumatologist to help them understand what it's like to live with RA.

Give a copy to your spouse, your parents, your kids (if they're older — might be a bit intense for young ‘uns). If your family understands what you're going through, you have a better, stronger team.

Buy a copy for your friends, your extended family, your boss, your neighbour.

Get a book for that person in your life who always tells you that their knee aches when it rains or that you don't look sick or who looks askance at you when you take the elevator instead of the stairs.

Don't have RA or another kind of inflammatory arthritis? We still need you on our team! The more people who understand what RA is, the more awareness there is about the disease. So buy a copy, please?

Anything you can do to help will be much appreciated. All money raised will be used for Show Us Your Hands! Community Programs.

Your Life with Rheumatoid Arthritis: Tools for Managing Treatment, Side Effects and Pain e-book edition is available at all Amazon sites, Nook, Kobo and iBooks. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the free Kindle app from Amazon. The paperback is available on Amazonand CreateSpace.