Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is a horrible disease that many do not know or really care about. So I am here to shed some light on the matter.
I would not have thought twice about Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) until I met two amazing people, both brothers, who had been diagnosed with it. I was heartbroken for them, and I did not understand how God could put two beautiful minds into those bodies. It was a horrendous disease to watch destroy two people that I loved so dearly.
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is a muscle disease, it slowly (and painfully) eats away at all your muscle matter, until you are literally skin and bone. These disease is not very common as well. It is more common in the male species than the female one. There is no cure whatsoever and it is carried through a mutated gene by the Mother ( a father can not pass it on).
This disease has taken one of my best friends and his brother from me, both who I loved as if they were my own flesh and blood. IT'S NOT FAIR. DMD left one bedridden for the last three years of his life. As it progressed, he deteriorated and he had to drop out of school because he could not tolerate the pain of sitting up and moving any longer. It was a rare occurrence to ever see him up in his chair. DMD was a little less invasive on his brother, who was able to graduate school- but not without pain. He also slowly lost the ability to control is muscles.
DMD is a horrible disease that no one, especially those two boys should have ever had to go through. Most people with DMD don not live past the age of 20, which is when life just starts to truly begin. There is no longevity of life with DMD. It is a poisonous, nasty disease that takes people far too soon, away from their loved ones. So many families suffer through the agonizing loss of their loved one.
Why? I just do not understand why such a horrible disease exists. Just why?
DMD makes expecting mothers who have this mutated gene fearful that they may have passed on this deadly disease to their child. Many mothers don't know about DMD until after their child is born and begins to grow. DMD only leaves memories of when their child stopped walking, and could not get back up anymore on their own. It leaves them only with the fear of death, and the long journey that accompanies this type of painful, tragic disease- no matter what pain medications they take. DMD is the voice of our loved ones that we think we hear clear as day when we know that they are gone and no longer with us.
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