Throw back Friday

This week's throw-back is from April 2012 when we finally met one of our online friends Mags and her gorgeous little boy Zak. Until Elin started school, I knew one other person with a child like her. I needn't point out how lonely this can sometimes make you feel. Think about it, with ordinary babies/toddlers/children there are a billion people around you at any one time who can lend a sympathetic ear, give advice and tell you they have been there. It's a bit different when you have an extra-ordinary child like Elin. Nobody knows what to say (at least at first) none of your friends and family know about your child, other than what they have kindly looked up on Wikipedia in order to understand. Therefore, the online community of mum's was and still is massively important to me. The internet gave us access to other families like ours at the click of a button, whenever we needed it. Instant messaging, advice, tips, pointers, empathy (not sympathy)- it actually kept me sane a few times. Knowing we weren't alone, that someone had been there before us. Absolutely invaluable. The above picture was taken in Alder Hey when me and Mags, one of the first 'online' mum's I ever met, gleefully realised that Elin and Zak had an appointment on the same day. After three years of messaging we finally met up and got our little fighters together. it was so good to meet Mags, her husband and Zak in the flesh after they had been so supportive to us through the medium of cyberspace. I understand why people get snotty about social media and online forums- used incorrectly they can be a nightmare, especially when there is a current trend of 'oversharing', it can feel like nobody has any privacy any longer. So easy to get lost into the electronic world. But for us,in this respect, the internet gave us an outlet for feelings, questions, emotions and confusion. It helped immensely particularly when Elin was a baby to see older kids with the same condition smiling their beautiful smiles and thriving. Maybe someone is reading this now and feeling the same way. I hope so and if you are I want to say you are not alone and if you want to 'talk' just open your computer and click away on those buttons, because there is, I have discovered so many times, no substitute for communicating with someone who has been there and got the T-Shirt :-)