This woman is celebrating five years of being diagnosed with a rare disorder.
Why?
Because for thirty years, she thought she’d been living with something else, something a lot more serious.
When she was four-years-old, Jean Sharon Abbott, now 38, was told she had a form of cerebral palsy which caused painful muscle spasms and tremors. What she actually has, as she found out in 2010, is a rare disorder called Dopa-Responsive Dystonia, which can be treated with just a single pill.
Within two days she was able to walk. Now she enjoy simple pleasures like cooking dinner, walking with her children to the bus stop, and driving them to their after-school activities.
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“I was able to maintain a positive attitude and be a joyful person throughout this whole ordeal,” she wrote on her blog, Rainy Day Friend, A Journey from Wheels to Heels.
Jean is the poster child for gratitude, saying, despite the pain and incapacitation, she still had a “fantastic childhood” – thanks in large part to the support of her family and real friends – and says she has no regrets. “My life experiences made me who I am today – and I like me,” she told the Daily Mail.
According to the National Institutes of Heath DRD is frequently misdiagnosed, since it also causes involuntary muscle movements.
Abbott is now an advocate for raising DRD awareness through social media, YouTube and blog posts. Her followers say she’s helped them recognize the symptoms in themselves and others.
(READ more in the Daily Mail)
Photos via Jean Abbott’s Facebook Page, A Rainy Day Friend