Heartbreak For Health - He Gets Weaker By The Day

The little lad’s smiles hide the horror.

On any given day, little Heath Sutherland’s face is etched with joy – but as his mum Anna watches him giggle and play, her heart is always heavy with sorrow.

The three-year-old from Rotorua chatters non-stop as he chases his big brothers around the lawn in his custom-made chair, but inside his wee body an insidious disease is slowly sapping his ability to move, eat and breathe – and his devoted mother knows that nothing short of a miracle will save him.

“Heath’s mind is bright, but he’s literally stuck inside his own body,” says Anna sadly.

Nearly two years ago, Heath was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a degenerative disease that drains physical strength by affecting the motor nerve cells in the spinal cord. Cruelly, it means that almost every day, Anna, 29, and Jono Sutherland, 28, and their older sons Jayden, nine, and Roman, six, are witness to Heath’s gradual deterioration.

The giggly boy has never crawled and will possibly never walk. Although he once rolled over and could sit alone for a few moments, he no longer can.

More recently, he’s become so weak that if his head flops forward, he struggles to lift it back up. His mum tells, “Over the course of a day, we see him getting weaker. By dinner, Heath can barely pick up a sandwich. It’s heartbreaking to watch.”