Thank you for sharing your beautiful children with the world, Shannon! And thank you for your relentless efforts to make a difference for other children and their families. Your strength, love, and perseverance are amazing! You and your family will be in my prayers and I will continue to vote three times a day, every day for Team Sanfilippo in the Pepsi Refresh Project. Lyn Smith (a friend and former colleague of your mom)
I just heard the fantastic news today that Sanfilippo syndrome won the funding through Pepsi Refresh! We have been voting! I am so thrilled for you! I am moved beyond words for your love, hard work, and sheer determination to bring awareness and funding to this terminal disease. I hope you find comfort in knowing that I am praying for you and your kids. With every piece of my heart, I am praying. I'm sure your children aren't able to thank you yet, so on their behalf... thank you. Susie Reed Clark (sister of Ben and Katie Reed)
I have been reading your blog for a few years now and I don't think I have ever commented, but I wanted to let you know that I think your strength and perseverance are unimaginably admirable. I do not personally know you or Waverly and Oliver but the strength that your blog and their little lives give me on the best of days and the worse of days is too great for words. Through you and your willingness to share your doubts, fears, happiness, and milestones, Waverly and Oliver are changing lives just for being themselves. I definitely appreciate the smaller things in life after becoming an avid reader of your blog, and while you may not know everyone who reads your blog, I'm certain there are others like me who read it in the shadows and support you from their own corner of the world.
Thanks for your comments, everyone. It means so much to me to read about the ways Waverly & Oliver have impacted your lives. It gives some purpose to all of this tragedy.
An attempt to keep family, friends, and complete strangers updated on our journey as we navigate our way through life with our beautiful children, Waverly & Oliver, who are both afflicted with MPS IIIA / Sanfilippo Sydrome.
What is MPS IIIA / Sanfilippo Syndrome
Sanfilippo Syndrome is a recessive autosomal genetic disease. Children with Sanfilippo Syndrome are missing an essential enzyme needed to breakdown and dispose of long sugar chains in the body called mucopolysaccharides. also known as GAGs. Because these sugar chains cannot be broken down and disposed of they accumulate in the cells causing progressive damage. Babies and young children with Sanfilippo Syndrome appear normal, but symptoms begin to appear with age as more and GAGs build up in the cells of the body. There are 3 stages to the disease. Stage 1 the child begins to lag behind peers and begins to display difficult behaviors. Stage 2 the child losing his/her language, becomes hyperactive, chews on everything, and has sleeping difficulties. Stage 3 the child slows down, becomes dependant for all mobility and loses the ability to chew/swallow. There is no treatment or cure for Sanfilippo. Life expectancy varies.
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip -to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The flight attendant comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland". "Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy. I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease.
It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people who would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around....and you being to notice that Holland has windmills...and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And for some time, the pain of that will never go away...because the loss of that dream is a significant loss.
But, if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things...about Holland.
What can we say...boy meets girl. We fall in love. Marry. 2 kids & 5 hearing aids later we had the wonderful experience of living in London. Then, in the spring of 2008 both of our kids were diagnosed with MPS III A, otherwise known as Sanfilippo Syndrome. It is a fatal genetic disorder. We moved back to the US in summer 2008. This is our journey.
8 comments:
Beautiful video...I'm a friend of a friend and am so inspired by your love, determination, and perseverence. Voted 3 times today and will continue to.
What a precious gift your children are to you and everyone of us. Thank you for sharing them with us. They are beautiful! Eileen from Michigan
Stunning, Shannon.
What beauty shines here in the midst all the brokenness.
You are all so precious.
~Charity
beautiful sacred images friend...much love to you!
Thank you for sharing your beautiful children with the world, Shannon! And thank you for your relentless efforts to make a difference for other children and their families. Your strength, love, and perseverance are amazing! You and your family will be in my prayers and I will continue to vote three times a day, every day for Team Sanfilippo in the Pepsi Refresh Project.
Lyn Smith (a friend and former colleague of your mom)
I just heard the fantastic news today that Sanfilippo syndrome won the funding through Pepsi Refresh! We have been voting! I am so thrilled for you! I am moved beyond words for your love, hard work, and sheer determination to bring awareness and funding to this terminal disease. I hope you find comfort in knowing that I am praying for you and your kids. With every piece of my heart, I am praying. I'm sure your children aren't able to thank you yet, so on their behalf... thank you.
Susie Reed Clark (sister of Ben and Katie Reed)
I have been reading your blog for a few years now and I don't think I have ever commented, but I wanted to let you know that I think your strength and perseverance are unimaginably admirable. I do not personally know you or Waverly and Oliver but the strength that your blog and their little lives give me on the best of days and the worse of days is too great for words. Through you and your willingness to share your doubts, fears, happiness, and milestones, Waverly and Oliver are changing lives just for being themselves. I definitely appreciate the smaller things in life after becoming an avid reader of your blog, and while you may not know everyone who reads your blog, I'm certain there are others like me who read it in the shadows and support you from their own corner of the world.
-Laura Darrow
Fort Vermilion, Alberta
Thanks for your comments, everyone. It means so much to me to read about the ways Waverly & Oliver have impacted your lives. It gives some purpose to all of this tragedy.
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