Donations

Our story

Our family has several members who are affected by VEDS. In fact, Walk with Deco was started by Mike DeCoursey or Deco as he is known, after Mike had several aneurysms rupture in his abdomen and leg due to VEDS. Luckily his leg was saved, which encouraged him to walk 4 million steps and raise $40,000 for VEDS research in 2021.

Walk with Deco continues to raise funds for research with our newest initiative of building a humanized mouse model with Georgia Tech and Emory University.

A humanized mouse is the first step in finding treatments and cures for any collagen disease which can affect our skin, bones, muscles, nerves, autoimmune and vascular systems.

This new mouse model will be available to any researcher expanding the field and utility of the mouse not only in VEDS but any collagen disease. It will speed up the process of treatments and cures. This is important as there are no cures for a collagen disease.

My desire is to find a cure. Yes, it’s personal because my grandson is about to enter puberty which is a high-risk period due to rapid growth and hormonal changes that can stress connective tissue.

Current treatments focus on prevention, like avoiding trauma and managing blood pressure, but there needs to be a cure.