Club Speaker Christine Beal - Mitochondria

Rotary Club of Birstall Luddites
Speaker Christine Beal - Mitochondrial.

On Mon 26th Sept Christine came to Batley Community Centre to give a talk to the club about her charity
" My Mito Mission " which is a genetic disorder affecting the mitochondrial .

With Christine was Helens son Eddie who has this condition and is a focus of the charity in that Eddie is a
Micro Mission with his own story. See Eddies story below.

Christine talked about her own story when one of her daughters, Emma, was taken ill in 2010 aged 21 and was in Calderdale hospitalised with heart and brain damage for a month where they diagnosed it might be mitochondrial disease but it took 5 years to confirm this and they sadly lost  Emma in 2017 aged 28.

There is a charity, the Lily Foundation, for children and families with the disease but nothing for adults so Christine set up her Charity for everyone, children and adults, to make people more aware of the illness and hopes to inspire increased awareness in the condition. .

Christine explained that basically the disease means the energy production system is not working properly.
The Mitochondria are in every cell in your body; they are like the battery packs. They convert your food into energy
and so your body breaks down because of this genetic illness and can damage major organs.

Christine says it is estimated it affects 1 in 5000 .

The majority of their funds are chanelled to the Lily Foundation and are raised go to research projects as well as to projects supporting those with
Mito around the UK.

Millions of people in the UK have conditions which are known to involve mitochondrial damage.
eg MS, Sepsis, Stroke, Cancer, Heart disease and many more.
 
A key part of what the charity do is empowering affected individuals and families around the UK to tell their own stories and run their own personal missions - like Eddie's. See Eddie's story below.
Part of Eddie's mission involved his daughter Isobella aged 7 who has done a
Leeds fun run for Mitocho and raised £340.

During Helen's year in office as president the club raised £3250 for the Lily Foundation.



Eddie's Mito Mission story



Links My Mito Mission Facebook site
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Links The Lily Foundation
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Links  My Mito Mission Charity
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