Life in Paradis: Savannah Smiles

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Savannah Smiles

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a neuromuscular disease characterized by degeneration of motor neurons, resulting in progressive muscular atrophy (wasting away) and weakness. And this disease has invaded the body of one very precious little girl, Savannah Sue Norton. Now, I do not know her personally but have interacted with her sweet mom, Sheree, on several occasions as she is one of the PTA mom's at Holland Elementary. Savannah Sue is currently 9 months old and has been diagnosed with Type 1 SMA-the most severe type with prognosis of life being 8 months to 2 years.

After hearing the diagnosis in early fall of this past year and being presented with the idea of running a 1/2 marathon to help raise money and awareness of this terrible disease, I knew I wanted to be apart of it! It's not that I am an avid runner and at this point, I had never even participated in a race. However, I knew I wanted to join in our community to support this family in any way that I could. I quickly recruited James and we signed up.....before we could back out ;)

We only participated once in the wonderful training that was provided by an amazing fellow teacher and her awesome husband. It's not that we weren't dedicated but early Saturday morning trainings were hard for us to shuffle. We did however train on our own as much as possible. We went hard core at first and were running (and walking) up to 6 miles. But I'll be honest, with all of my personal issues going on, it was hard to continue training as desired. I had this big fear of doing something that might jeopardize my chance to get pregnant. My nurses advised against it....my doctor said I would "probably" be okay. I don't like the word "probably" so James and I made the decision that I would not run in this race....it just wasn't worth the risk since we had begun our first round of fertility treatment. Do I regret it now knowing that I was not pregnant at that time? Yes, in some ways I do because this is something I have always wanted to do and what better cause to do it for?! But, I have also been reminded several times of what a great mother I am for the many sacrifices I am already making for our future children. I choose to hang on to these words!

So, yes....I bailed on the race that I convinced James to run with me! But can I just tell you how incredibly proud I am of him?! Having very little training (he never got over 6 miles), he joined the Savannah Smiles group on that very cold and rainy morning and finished the 13.1 mile race in 2:47:52. I think he's pretty proud of himself (as he should be) for this accomplishment but claims that if he ever does it again, he will train harder next time! And I plan on completing this goal of mine one day so I am sure he will indeed run another one :)

Although I wasn't able to run in the race, every mile I ran during training, I ran for Savannah Sue! And when I run now, I still think of that precious little face and continue to pray for healing for her and her family. My prayer is that we raised a lot of money and awareness for this cause...and that God received all of the glory!