Special Saturday - I have special needs because .......

This week I can finish the theme sentence easily on behalf of Cameron.

I have special needs because when I was a baby I had Pneumococcal Meningitis.

We have always known why Cameron is the way he is and for that I am grateful. Not grateful that he got sick and and almost died. Not grateful that he has severe brain damage and is not living the life he was born to live but grateful that we don't live every day asking why?

When you read other people's blogs, talk to other parents and follow facebook pages you quickly realize that there are thousands of parents asking why? They don't know why their children are the way they are. They spend years asking why their child is not developing like other children and searching for someone to listen and understand their concerns. Then they want to know why.

We know exactly why Cameron has special needs. He was a beautiful little baby boy, developing perfectly and filling our lives with love. Life was perfect and had been for five and half months until Cameron had to fight Pneumococcal Meningitis to stay with us. He fought so hard and he won but not without terrible brain damage.

Now we live our lives with one foot in the special needs community and the other in the neurotypical community. Every day is a new adventure and you never really know what is going to happen next but one thing is for sure. Cameron still fills our lives with love, he is still perfect and he still fights to stay with us. His path is different to the rest of us but he walks it with his head held high and a strong sense of what is important in life.

I wish our lives had not taken this path and I wish Cameron was living the life of a typical teenage boy in his second last year of high school with dreams and aspirations for his future. But this is the path he is to walk and we will continue to walk beside him and support him through what ever lies ahead.

As we walk beside Cameron we also continue to raise awareness of Meningitis and the speed with which it can kill and we hope that by talking about Meningitis and raising awareness, children and other families will be saved from the devastation we have experienced - or worse.

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This blog post is part of the awareness raising campaign - Special Saturday - raising awareness of people living with special needs around the globe.

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