‘Three teds (Dotty the Cat, Olive the Lion and Frank the Monkey) travelling the world visiting real families who want to share their lives – each is lucky to love a person with Down Syndrome’…
Our visit from Dotty the Cat coincided with a visit from some special friends…
Having Ella and her extra chromosome has always meant we have met some very special people that we wouldn’t otherwise have in our lives. When Future of Down’s was first set up in 2011, there was no facebook page, just an online forum where parents and families could go to discuss anything and everything.
It was during the first few weeks of being on the forum and reading posts that I came to read Rachel’s story. And it was so very similar to mine. Her daughter Florence was born six days before my daughter Ella. Both had cardiac defects and feeding problems and both our girls were PEG fed. I can’t tell you how wonderful it felt to have ‘met’ someone else who was going through what we were.
Fastforward to today and we have helped each other through uncertain times, surgeries, feeding issues and hospital admissions. We send birthday presents and Christmas cards and the facebook message between us is 4 years old and could quite easily be turned into a novel! It’s been a running joke for a while that we would have to meet before our little ladies started school.
So finally, this July (just 6 weeks before school starts) we managed it!
My mum bought us tickets to go and see ‘The tale of Mr Tumble’ in the Manchester International Festival as part of our Christmas present. Rachel managed to get tickets not only for the same performance but also bagged the seats next to us. She and Florence arrived at our house on the Satruday afternoon, stayed over and then we headed into Manchester on the tram to watch the Sunday morning performance.
A thoroughly lovely weekend and so special to meet someone in the flesh after being friends for 4 years. And lovely that we had a Ted to share it with too.
And Rachel, thank you for a lovely weekend and for all your words of encouragement and support over the last four years, lets not leave it so long til next time! Xxx