Shear Madness-The Schubert Life: Mitochondrial Disease

September 18th through 24th is Mitochondrial Awareness Week. SO many people don't know what it is and until about a year ago, I didn't either. At our shop, we have a family that comes in and we didn't even know that Anna was sick until her mom told us about it. She was diagnosed with Mito when she was little and since then has developed Epilepsy from the Mito. This causes her to be VERY tired all the time, and the older she gets and the more she grows, the harder it is on her body. Mitochondrial is the energy in your cells. If there is no energy, then you have a very hard time developing physically and mentally. There is soo much more to this disease and on top of it, of all things, EPILEPSY. Seriously, could this little girl have anything worse?? Most children that are diagnosed with Mito, won't live past their teen years. One of my missions, is to help her do everything that she wants to do in her life. Like a bucket list. If she has something she wants to do, I want and will help her do it, no matter how crazy it may be.
October 3rd, the day after my birthday, Anna has to go to Children's Hospital for a few days to put lead in her head and have work done to prep her for another brain surgery that she will have before the end of this year. This will be her third one. The last one she had, she ended up having to re-learn EVERYTHING over again-including how to hold her head up and walking- and that wasn't even supposed to happen. That time, she had a 50/50 chance of making it through the surgery, and this time her odds are more 70/30. So we are expecting her to do well. After the surgery, Anna will have nurses come to her house for a while and after that, hospice will come in.
She is an amazing little girl and obviously a fighter, and she has taught me so much in the little while that I have known her. Last year, our shop raised money with every haircut that we did and also did a raffle basket which helped with finding a cure for Mito. This coming April, St. Louis will be holding their annual Energy For Life walk, and even though I have never done one before, I will be doing this one for Anna. I want to raise as much money as possible, and doing that will help inform people of it even more. If anyone has any ideas on how I can raise money, let me know!!