<p>The little girl in the picture is Harriet, she is my friends daughter who has Rett symdrome - She was born showing no signs of any issues and came home from the hospital like any other healthy little girl, however today at nearly 7 years old Harriet is not playing dress up with her friends or riding a bike, instead she is left in a wheelchair,unable to talk, feed herself, or perform the most basic task a 7 year old would take for granted if this was not bad in itself, she has breathing difficulties, a feeding tube, and her perents have lost count of her seizures! - if she is lucky enough to make it into adulthood she will require 1 to 1 24 hour care... this CAN BE CHANGED...</p> <p>Suprisingly Harriet has NO BRAIN DAMAGE, she has a missing protien that would make her brain function normally.</p> <p class="yiv1249199207ecxmsonormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Amazingly there is hope. In 2007 a paper in the Journal 'Science' described an unprecedented achievement: the reversal of Rett symptoms in a mouse model of the disorder.</span></p> <p class="yiv1249199207ecxmsonormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 16.2pt;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Scientists are predicting that Rett Syndrome could become the first curable neurological disorder.</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> We know the faulty gene.</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> Scientists firmly believe they know how to restore the gene to health.</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> There is no brain damage, and so a reversal would give Harriet a potentially normal life.</span></p> <p>When I heard that I could make a real difference to Harriets future I decided I needed to do something big!... so I have madly agreed to run the marathon, the training, motivation and dedication for me to complete this challange is imense so please make it worth my while... dig deep so that we can make Harriet's teenage years full of fun and laughter!!</p>