Eaton hosts ‘Funtasia’ to raise money for cure of rare bone disease
If Craig Eaton’s name is in the news, it’s usually because of his role as Brooklyn’s Republican Party chairman. But Eaton is also a husband and a father whose family has endured a great deal of pain and has triumphed over adversity for nearly two decades.
Eaton’s son Vincent, 18, a freshman at Villanova University, suffers from multiple hereditary exostoses (MHE), a rare bone disease in which multiple lumps develop on a child’s bones, stunting growth. Vincent, who was diagnosed with MHE at the tender age of seven months, has undergone 29 operations throughout his young life to correct abnormalities, according to his mother, Susan Eaton. In one procedure, Vincent had to have a device known as an external fixator surgically placed on his left arm to help lengthen the arm.
To raise awareness of MHE, which Eaton has called “an orphan disease” due to the lack of knowledge of it among the general public, Craig and Susan Eaton have sponsored fundraisers on a bi-annual basis to generate money for research into a cure or at least less invasive treatments of the illness. The most recent fundraiser took place in 2011.
