Tanner and Skyler

Tanner was born April 20, 2011. When he failed to meet milestones like pulling to a stand or learning to walk we became very concerned. On December 13th, 2012 our sweet Tanner was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) type 2. At the time of his diagnosis, Esther was 7 weeks pregnant with Skyler and we were told that Skyler would have a 1 in 4 chance of having SMA as well. Skyler was born July 29, 2013. Shortly after, he was tested for SMA and was found to also have this devastating disease.

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a rare degenerative disease that affects the motor neurons. Motor neurons affect the voluntary muscles that are used for activities such as crawling, walking, head and neck control, lifting your arms, breathing, and swallowing. Slowly SMA robs these children of all of these activities. The brain’s cognitive functions and the ability to feel objects and pain are not affected. As yet, there is no treatment or cure for SMA.