As a child growing up in Chicago, Jeannie Zibrida didn’t know why her arms and legs didn’t work like those of other kids.
“I didn’t understand why I couldn’t run like everybody else on the playground or why I didn’t learn how to ride a bike until the fourth grade or why I couldn’t walk without spraining my ankles,” said Zibrida, who has lived in Gainesville for nearly three decades.
Zibrida was eventually diagnosed with the rare, incurable Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease, a slowly progressive condition that affects sensory and motor nerves in the arms, hands, legs and feet. She learned that her father, aunt and brother also had the disease, which often results in muscle atrophy and curled toes (also known as hammertoes)…