I recently had an opportunity to sit down and speak with Cindy DeMint. She is a fellow ‘Corridorian’ living in Yorba Linda but more importantly, she is the president of the Orange County chapter of the National Ataxia Foundation. Now you’re probably asking, “what is Ataxia?” That’s a great question, I just recently learned about the disease myself. Well, generally it’s a degenerative disease that can manifest is several different ways, but the key word being degenerative. It can manifest at any age. Three of Cindy’s four children developed symptoms in their late teens after leading normal lives to that point. The disease was discovered after family friends had observed what they thought was drunken behavior that they thought they should report. That began a several year long process to understand what was happening to her healthy teen aged kids.
“his coordination was so poor they thought he was drunk”
On September 15th the OC chapter of NAF is hosting the 10th annual Walk and Roll event around East Lake Village to raise awareness about the disease and funds for promising research. Registration for the event opens at 8am, 9am the walk begins and from 1030-12 there will be plenty of vendors and activities for the family. Be sure to checkout the podcast to hear her story and visit the website or Facebook to see how you can get involved. See you at the walk!
