LAYLA'S BATTLE: Effingham freshman Layla McBride continues to battle through FND with softball and community support

Apr. 30—EFFINGHAM — Sometimes, life throws you a curveball.

For Effingham freshman Layla McBride, though, it's more of a riseball.

A pitcher on the Flaming Hearts' softball team, McBride has been dealing with functional neurologic disorder, or FND, since July of 2022.

The disease, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke's website, is a group of common neurological movement disorders caused by an abnormality in how the brain functions.

McBride has dealt with numerous seizures over the years.

"It's pretty scary, but not as scary for me as it is for other people seeing it," McBride said. "I feel like a lot of people started treating me differently. They don't think I can do as much."

McBride's first instance of this was when she was pitching against Teutopolis during her seventh-grade softball season and collapsed in the pitcher's circle.

"At first, everyone freaked out and no one knew what was happening," McBride's mother, Stephaney Pinter, said. "They said that they thought she was dehydrated, so they kept us in the hospital a couple of days and gave her fluids and thought that it was going to be a fluke accident. It was kind of hit-and-miss when it happened and then (she) got more seizure-like activity in eighth grade and had 25 within that six-month span. They've progressively gotten worse and more common, so we did what research we could and tried to figure out the best route for her."

McBride and Pinter have traveled in ambulances and stayed at hospitals more times than any now-ninth grader should.

McBride now has a hospital she feels the most comfortable in, though.

"We went to a new doctor in Marion and I'm hopeful that he can fix me," McBride said. "He's doing IV treatments every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for two weeks and then, after that, it's six weeks of at-home treatment."

When everything first started occurring, McBride had no idea what the situation was.

The doctors didn't even have a firm grasp on the problem, either.

"At the beginning, they didn't really tell us much," McBride said. "They just said I was stressed and that I needed to reduce my stress, but we've been to a bunch of doctors and a bunch of hospitals and the last hospital we went to last month said that I had FND."

The only cure to it, for her, was playing the game she loves — softball.

"It takes my mind off of everything," McBride said. "I'm not stressed when I'm playing; I just feel like I have a lot more fun and am not worrying about if I have (a seizure) or what people think.

"It's like a getaway for me with everything going on. It's the only place that I feel normal."

What has also helped is seeing the support from her community.

Pinter's friend, Emilee Kistler, started a GoFundMe page for McBride in March of this year.

Titled "Layla's Journey," Kistler has raised $9,560 of her $15,000 goal since.

"I am thankful for the support of our friends, family and community to come together to support getting the help that Layla needs to get treatment," said Kistler in a message to Daily News Sports Editor Alex Wallner. "Layla has always been such an energetic and loving person to be around and it has been really hard to watch her health not allow her to live as actively as she would like. I hope this fundraiser continues to get her the help she needs to heal and get her life back to normal. The family did not want to ask for help, but we knew this was the only way to get her better. We are very hopeful this far in her journey, but they have now added at least another week of treatment, which, of course, in turn, costs a lot more money.

"Any type of help from anyone would mean the world to them."

"It shows me how much people care," McBride added. "I definitely didn't expect to raise that much, but we did."

"We've had two years of medical bills that we've tried to chip away at and make the minimum payments," Pinter continued. "With 20-plus ambulance rides and multiple hospital stays, we knew that this new treatment was something that insurance didn't cover and we were going to have to reach out and get some support. Hopefully, that covers the rest of this treatment that she's doing."