Aiden is one of the happiest kids you’ll ever meet. He is easy going and has the greatest smile. Aiden also has Leigh’s Syndrome, a debilitating mitochondrial disease. His cells can’t generate enough energy for him to function as he’d like to.
Despite being told that Aiden was unlikely to see his fifth birthday, this-soon-be six-year-old has started school in a stimulating environment where he will be surrounded by other kids and have the opportunity to develop.
Zach Seymour is an expert at living with mitochondrial disease. He doesn’t have mito himself, but both his mother and brother do.
When Zach was 12, his Mom was suffering from chronic fatigue and sleeping for 14 hours a day. As a single mother of two, she worked at several jobs to try to make ends meet. She suspected mitochondrial disease but was unable to convince doctors in their small, rural town that this was a possibility. It was demoralizing, frustrating, and debilitating, as this lack of willingness to consider mito left them without a diagnosis. No diagnosis also meant no treatment, relief, support, or hope.