Nena

Nena grew up in the Duluth area and although some day she’d love to live in the middle of a big city, loves all that Duluth and the surrounding community has to offer. She works as a full-time pediatric speech therapist at a local rehabilitation clinic and hospital. She has been married for 21 years to Scott and became a mom 16 years ago when her son Griffin was born. Five years later, his brother Reese joined their family. Griffin taught her so much about parenting, she felt more than ready to tackle the tantrums and challenges when Reese came along. Then Reese started having seizures at 2.5 months of age and she had to learn a whole new way of parenting. Reese was diagnosed with a mitochondrial disease at 15 months old. Mitochondria are energy producers in our cells and mitochondrial disease can affect any bodily system. Reese’s development stopped when he started having seizures. Entering the world of parenting a child with special needs changed Nena’s perspective on everything. In her spare time, she loves word games and crossword puzzles, curling up with a good book, sewing simple projects and going on coffee dates. caringbridge Instagram