Rusty Hastings is running the San Antonio Marathon on November 13th in honor of his little girl Kadence and the Hastings family are fighting SMA along the way. Rusty and his wife, Jessica, decided to dedicate this race to Kadence just weeks after she was diagnosed with SMA this summer.
About 3 months ago when our daughter Kadence was 2 years old we noticed that her running form was a little funny and that she fell down quite often. We started to get concerned so visited with our Pediatrician who then referred us to a Pediatric Orthopedic doctor. This doctor thought everything was fine and recommended us to visit with a physical therapist to see if we could get Kadence's thigh muscles stronger. With Kadence's first visit with the PT, the PT said she had double jointed limbs and low muscle tone in her thighs. The PT said it would take roughly 6 months to build up the low muscle in her legs. We were worried but knew this was manageable and it would soon be fixed. After 5 weeks of weekly visits to the PT, Kadence finally started working with her, during the first 5 weeks Kadence threw the biggest fits and would not do a single thing the PT would ask her to do. It was very frustrating and difficult watching our child go through this but finally, Kadence really started to enjoy the PT and love all the toys and activities they did. For three weeks Kadence behaved well and did everything the PT asked. On 8-12-11, a day I will never forget, after Kadence's 30 minute session was up, the PT (who was always happy and energetic) sat down next to me and said, “It is more serious than just low muscle tone and hyper mobility.” I told her that I did not understand, and she said that I need to contact my Pediatrician and ask her to do blood work on Kadence to check for any deficiencies that could be causing the muscle weakness in her legs. Over the next 10 days our lives went from a healthy family to the most confused, sad and scared family! My perfect, beautiful, and brave girl Kadence was poked and prodded more than any human being should have to be. Needless to say Kadence was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Type III. Rusty decided to run the marathon because Kadence will never get to; so he wanted to be her legs and participate in her name.
We are always so inspired by anyone who pushes their body to help change the future of SMA. But when it is a parent of an SMA child we know the emotions are high and it takes an enormous amount of dedication to train — especially so soon after a devastating SMA diagnosis. The Hastings family are certainly incredible! Witin weeks of receiving her diagnosis, the Hastings family started Team Kadence, quickly set up a fundraising page via Facebook's Causes, and blew through their $1,000 goal in no time. Team Kadence has now raised $1,630 to help end SMA!!!
Thank you Team Kadence for being part of Team GSF! Together we can end SMA — one person, one dollar, one mile at a time! Good luck Rusty — we know darling Kadence will carry you through each mile.