Benefit for Kendralind Kiley

Come for a silent auction, door prizes, and a special artistic presentation. A potluck dinner will be served( food donations accepted), and Legacy Chocolates will provide a dessert table. Legacy Chocolate Manager Kendralind was stricken with a near fatal condition in January. After being sent home for two days from the clinic with what doctors thought was flu-like symptoms, she was airlifted to the Mayo Clinic where she stayed for almost two months. She lost all strength in her body and was unable to breathe on her own for most of the time there. Some of the best doctors in the world did scores of tests on her. Finally they diagnosis Kendralind has cytochrome c oxidase (COX IV) deficiency. This is a mitochondrial disease resulting from the failures of the mitochondria--specialized compartments present in every cell of the body except red blood cells. Mitochondria are responsible for 90% of the energy needed by the body to sustain life and, when they fail, cell injury and even cell death follow. If this process is repeated throughout the body, whole systems begin to fail, and the life of the person in whom this is happening is severely compromised. Currently lungs, heart, immune and nervous systems are most fragile. She just turned twenty years old while at Rochester.