You can only be described as exceptional when you spend every second of every day proving every one wrong. Fifty years ago, in 1966, Andreas Rett first published the first description of Rett syndrome. It was only generally recognised in 1983, when a second article was published by Swedish researcher Dr. Bengt Hagberg. It means that Sherry (58 years old) had already been living with an undiagnosed disorder for 8 years, Nola for 2 and Kristi was 1 the year Rett was officially identified.
These girls (and their parents) were given an incredibly bleak life expectancy, but this is a story of hope, one where we prove the world wrong. That is exactly what these women proceeded to do, to reset our understanding of Rett syndrome ... more