Teen Mom Leah Messer worries about special needs daughter Ali during coronavirus pandemic
TEEN Mom star Leah Messer admitted that she's "terrified" by the uncertainty around coronavirus, because of her daughter Ali being high risk.
The 28-year-old reality television star told her 1.4 million Twitter followers on Thursday, that she feels anxious because the situation is potentially life threatening for her 10-year-old.
She wrote: "All of the uncertainty around this damn virus terrifies me. What about the folks that do have a compromised immune system!??? Ali has never even had the flu because it is potentially life threatening."
Ali was born with a disease called Titin muscular dystrophy, which is a very rare form of the disorder that is usually found in adults.
She’s the youngest person (and one of about 20 patients total) with this form of the disease.
The 16 and Pregnant alum told fans that she was trying to make the "best of being home safe," during the pandemic.
She wrote another tweet, which read: "We’re still making the best of being at home safe and well with each other, but ughhhh!! My anxiety is feeling all of these damn emotions and the uncertainty."
The MTV star said she needed to step away from social media and just be present with her children.
She wrote: "There are some days I just have to shut off all technology and enjoy every single second with my babies."
Leah has detailed Ali’s struggle with muscular dystrophy, a genetic disease that causes weakness and loss of muscle mass, in her memoir,
The MTV star more going on than what doctors told her and baby daddy Corey Simms.
During her C-section, Corey asked about his newborn daughter: “What’s wrong with her? There something wrong with her legs.”
Leah explained how Ali’s legs were stuck up over her head and her hands were hyperextended back towards her elbows.
Leah was told this was “fairly common among breech babies” and that was likely her position as the bottom baby in the womb.
She explained how while twin sister Aleeah was “reaching developmental milestones,” Ali, now 10, “just didn’t seem to have the strength.”
The older Ali got, the more she kept falling “further and further behind.”
By her first birthday, she couldn’t bear any weight on her legs.
Leah wrote: “For the first three years of Ali’s life, I felt like I was holding my breath. She was tested for everything from a spinal injury to skeletal and neuromuscular disorders.
"We met with so many different specialists it made our heads spin—geneticists, neurologists, orthopedists, and neuromuscular specialists."
She said her daughter underwent X-rays, bloodwork, genetic testing, muscle biopsies and multiple MRIs.
The reality star wrote: “My maternal instinct was screaming that there was more going on with her than just a developmental delay, but none of the doctors we took her to seemed to be able to tell me why she wasn’t reaching those early milestones.”
She claimed one doctor, without any testing, thought she could have dwarfism, down syndrome or spina bifida.
Leah explained how the road to finding a diagnosis was “long and lonely,” as family, including Corey, insisted she stop putting Ali through testing.
But after Dr. Tsao, who has appeared on , gave Ali a muscle biopsy, he diagnosed her with Titin Myopathy.
She explained in the book: “At the time, there were only a handful of adults around the world with the same type of muscular dystrophy, and Ali was the first child ever to be diagnosed.
"With adults, they know that Titin MD can lead to heart and lung failure, but for Ali, we have no idea what to expect as she gets older because she is the research.”
Leah, who is also mom to daughter Adalynn with ex-husband Jeremy Calvert, called the process to get the diagnosis “unbearable,” and she was “angry” that there is no cure.
She wrote: “Every time we had to have Ali tested, it was like having our hearts ripped out of our bodies, especially when she had to be sedated for the MRIs and the muscle biopsy. In those first few years of her life, I just remember feeling helpless all the time."
Leah explained how Aleeah began acting out, as their focus was on Ali.
She would “throw fits, hit and be mean to Ali.”
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The twins are “doing a lot better now,” it is “still a daily struggle for both of them.”
She wrote: "I worry all the time that they’re not as close as other twins because of everything they have to go through.
“Ali will see her sister running and doing all the things I have to hold her back from (for her own safety), which is so hard on her. At the same time, Aleeah sees me spending all this time with Ali, taking her to physical therapy and driving to all her doctors’ appointments, which can leave her feeling left out and neglected.”
Leah said all she could do is try to find a “balance” where they know they are loved.
As The Sun exclusively reported, Leah also revealed her , her , her and her