McKenzie Michelle
Careywas born on April 20,2002. I had a normal pregnancy and
a normal delivery. McKenzie was a beautiful baby girl who was perfectly healthy, we thought. Everyone kept telling me something
was wrong, but as a mother I didn't want to believe it. When McKenzie was two months old we noticed her looking up at
the ceiling all the time. She would not focus her eyes on anyone or anything. We first thought she may be blind. We had her
vision tested and her vision was perfectly normal. I kept taking her to her pediatrician for her regular checkups and he said
she was a floppy baby. Which meant she had very little if any muscle tone. At that point he sent us to a neurologist. The
neurologist knew something was wrong with our precious angel, but he wasn't sure what it could be. Kenzie's neurologist
sent us for MRI's, Cat Scans and all kinds of blood tests. Still no diagnosis. A week before McKenzie turned one, we had
to rush to the emergency room because she had a 104.9 temp. They said it was just a virus and sent us home. 4 days later she
started having seizures and was admitted into Scottish Rite, where we spent 22 days. She had over 80 Seizures, 12 the
first day. Still they had no idea what caused her seizures. They performed MRI's, Cat Scans and of course, more
blood tests. Still no diagnosis. The geneticist came in and started talking to us about a possibe mitochondrial disease. At that
time we had never heard of it and had no idea what it meant or how serious it was.The only way to detect a mitochondrial disease
is through a muscle biopsy, which they decided to do. It took about three months for the results to come in and we were terrified.
We finally got a call from the geneticist and after all this time we now have a diagnosis, MITOCHONDRIAL DISEASE. We
still knew very little about the disease. We did alot of research on this disease and found out all of her major organs can
be affected with this disease. She could possibly lose her hearing and her eyesight. We thougth there was no hope until now.
