sweet Megan

Dear family,
I am writing to let you know that Megan has been diagnosed with a neuromuscular disease called spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). She has type II. It presents itself in a spectrum of severity meaning that not all kids are equally effective. It seems Megan is somewhere in the intermediate area. It is hard to predict exactly how aggressive Megan's case will be. Time will obviously tell. They are working with Dr. Swoboda who is a leading expert for this disorder and kids come from all over the country to see her. Type II is less severe than Type I but does create significant challenges. She faces a life in a wheel chair and future surgery (maybe not for 10 years) to deal with scoliosis among other issues. A detail plan is being devised to deal with exercise, nutrition, and everything esle. A good online resource if you want to learn more about the disease is http://medicine.utah.edu/neurology/research/swoboda/sma/.
This website deals with all types of SMA. Not everything you read about the disease will apply to Megan. . This will be a time to pull together to pray and to increase in testimony.
so far Nancy and Stephen found out--in classes some of the things they can start doing are to
Keep her healthy--keep in in her stander (physical stander-) for minium or two hours
she'll sleep with the braces on her legs alternating --so its just on one leg each night
she'll soon have a manual wheel chair. This disease will not affect her mind--so she will continue to be the smarty that she always has been--We love you so much Megan and pray that you will be so blessed through all of this--you were such a trooper with the many tests of the past weeks.