Sunday, November 6, 2011

Son Of Braves GM has Mitochondrial Disease

I read an article today about the son of the Braves GM who has Mitochondrial Disease.  It is uplifting!  He plays baseball at the college level and it made me think of the baseball player in our house who has Mito.  You can read the article here.

It sounds a lot like my boys.  Dr. Shoffner is amazing and I am glad that he is tireless in his efforts to find real treatments and a cure for Mitochondrial Disease.  

A few quotes for those who don't want to read the entire article:

"It seemed the more he worked out, the worse shape he’d be in. If he started off bench pressing 185 pounds, he was down to 130 the next week. He’d have cramps that lasted two hours after a football game, no matter how much fluid he drank. The longer he played in a game — and as a ninth grader he played fullback, linebacker and kicked and punted for Landmark Christian’s junior-varsity team — the worse he got."

"He didn’t know it, but he was dealing with a chameleon of a disease. It targets mitochondria, “power plants” in almost every kind of cell in the body which convert nutrients from food and oxygen into energy. Mitochondrial disease can affect different systems in the body — brain, heart, muscle — at different times in different people. It’s complex and difficult to diagnose."

"A frantic call to the neurologist, who then consulted Wren’s other doctors, brought word: Wren should see Dr. John Shoffner, a specialist in mitochondrial disease. He was world renown and practicing in Atlanta."

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