A beacon of hope

When you discover something is wrong with you, your child, your family member, what do you do?  Once you have gone to the doctor and you have determined the prognosis, the logical next step these days is to scour the internet, searching for an answer, a solution, a way to fix whatever is ailing the person you love more than anything in the world.  You want to make it right even if it would take an entire army, you would make that happen to achieve a "cure".  

I somehow managed to stay away from the internet over the past 15 or so months since Olivia's diagnosis.  Then one day I began to search the internet constantly, but not so much for a cure, but rather for like-minded individuals.  Moms and dads struggling with the day to day madness of having a child (which is hard enough), but also having a child with cerebral palsy.  I thought maybe I could learn something from the successes or from the failed therapies.  I thought I could learn how to be stronger than I already have to be each day.  But what I really found was somewhat alarming and selfishly comforting all at the same time.  It was in this moment that I realized I wasn't alone in this journey.  That there were other people out there as desperate to help their child as I am.  And what was the hardest for me to digest was the scary fact that I found so many stories and families with children just like Olivia, some with more challenges, some with far less.


I am not sure why I am surprised by the fact that there are endless blogs and Facebook pages of people, and children specifically, out there struggling with some type of developmental disorder, rare disease or cancer to name a few.  I searched Facebook and quickly realized that page after page would pop up depicting their journey, their story, their life.  Each one different from the next, but each page had the same exact underlying theme:  

Love.  Hope.  Strength.  Honesty.  

With tears streaming down my face I read each and every page (or like 50 pages), looking for the answers that would help my little girl.  A way to make her daily challenges disappear.  But what I found was this network, or rather this family of people, that use their struggle as a beacon of hope for those in the same situation and likely as a way to find strength from within.  I can only marvel at these families, how they keep their life together while managing to fit in therapy session after therapy session, doctor appointment after doctor appointment.  I sat there quietly and thought to myself, "How can this be?  How can this many families have a child(ren) struggling with such a hard journey?"  

It is such an amazing thing to have internet in this day and age.  You can find just about anything you are looking for in the world with just a few key strokes.  And with just a few clicks I was able to find families in a similar situation as my own.  Right there on the page were several children with mild cerebral palsy of some sort (left or right hemi, etc).  I have never felt so close to people I have never met, yet at the same time felt so alone. So for now, I can only hope that my blog for Olivia and her Facebook page can help do the same for someone else, to be a beacon of hope and encouragement to other parents.  I am going to keep documenting Olivia's story, keep sharing her ups and downs and continue working to make Olivia's right side as strong as it can be.  I am so proud of how far she has come and I know she will only continue to improve each and every day and maybe even be someone's inspiration when they are feeling lost and alone.