Exclusive‘Teen Mom 2’ Star Leah Messer Has a Heart-to-Heart With Daughter Ali Ahead of MDA Summer Camp
After Teen Mom 2 star Leah Messer and her daughter Aliannah Simms returned home from their family vacation to Hawaii, they had a big surprise. In an In Touch exclusive sneak peek of tonight’s episode of the hit MTV reality TV series, Leah revealed Ali was accepted to MDA summer camp, which is for kids with muscular dystrophy.
Ali, 9, was excited to be going to camp but she admitted to her mama that she was nervous about one thing — being away from her family for a whole week. But Leah, 27, comforted Ali.
“Listen, any time that you wanna call home, I’m sure they’ll let you call home,” Leah told her daughter.
She also had a heart-to-heart with her daughter about her condition. When she was just a baby, Ali was diagnosed with a rare form of muscular dystrophy called Titin’s muscular dystrophy.
Muscular dystrophy is a group of diseases that are inherited, and they cause the muscles that control movement (called voluntary muscles) to weaken. But with Titin’s, it would cause the muscle cells to break down. Until Ali’s case, doctors had never seen Titin’s muscular dystrophy in a child or a patient as young as Ali. Currently, there are only about 20 people in the world with this particular form of muscular dystrophy.
Despite Ali’s disability, she is still as active and independent as can be. But when Leah told her daughter that her disability does not stop her from doing things she wants to do, Ali got extremely honest with her mama.
“Not cheer or softball,” Ali said. “I didn’t know that you really wanted to do softball and cheer,” Leah asked her daughter. “I don’t ever ever want to fail you. So I want you to feel like you’re always doing whatever you feel like you want to do.”
But even though Ali seemed discouraged that she could not cheer or play softball, Leah tried to help her remain hopeful. “Maybe going to MDA summer camp will really show you what you truly want to do and you’ll make lots of friends too,” Leah said. “And they’ll be just like you.”
Teen Mom 2 airs on MTV Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
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