It is quite frightening to say the least! I, myself, have seen a few stories like these in the past. But I never really knew how it might affect my family in the future.

The other day, I was lying in bed showing my son Oliver pictures of him of when he was a baby.

I would show him a photo and just describe the time period or the story behind the photo. Right after, I would flash the photo to my husband, followed with a sigh of disbelief.

Disbelief that time has flown by so quickly, and how different my children now look compared to their chubby toothy grins back then.

My husband would ask me to send him a photo or two, and I questioned why he wanted certain ones.

To my surprise, he said that he takes the photos (which I mostly pulled off of my Facebook) that have the most likes, and would Google search them to make sure that no one was publicly using them for their own personal gain.

I had no idea he had ever done this, let alone had been doing it for a while.

Like myself, he had come across stories of people using photos of children (most of the time children with disabilities or illnesses) and setting up a GoFundMe me account to raise money.

This money, of course, would never reach the families truly in need, nor have any approval to use these photos.

Of course, I am not saying that all the accounts have been fraud, but just the ones that I came across that were proven by the families themselves, to be fake.

I could not imagine scrolling the internet and hearing from friends or family that they donated to the “said” account and me having no idea of what they were talking about.

I have never questioned myself, before then, if I was sharing too much.

Ever since receiving Oliver’s diagnosis, I found my answers and faith in family’s who shared their journey and story with me or others.

Because of that, there was no doubt that I would do the same for other families in the future. I started my blogs, and have even written for others, personally about my son and family.

Unfortunately, that is a chance that I know I am taking every single day when I share our story.

But I am glad that my husband has helped and taken precaution to make sure we can try to avoid such a terrible situation from happening to us.

This picture shows that my daughter is so aware of her brother’s difficulties and limitations and will do anything she can to help him.

She has just turned 9 and although her brother has always had autism, always been non verbal and always had learning difficulties she seems to understand what that actually means much more than ever before.

As her understanding and knowledge grows so does her awareness that her brother will never be the same as her.

Children take in much more than we ever realise.

She watches me grab his arm as we approach roads where I only needed a small vocal reminder to be careful to her.

She watches me cut up his dinner for him where I would leave hers untouched for her to manage herself.

She watches me dress her brother daily knowing that no other child in her class would require that level of personal care.

She knows he can’t read and write where she can do both fluently.

I was right behind the children and could have reached out to touch either of them yet as the children approached a small turning area at the end of my street I noticed my daughter immediately pull her brother back by his coat.

It’s one of the many simple actions she now does instinctively when I am out with them both.

She blocks her brother from danger by standing in front of him, she removes things from his reach that she knows could be harmful, she types things into google or YouTube on his behalf because she understands he can’t do it himself.

She reassures him and explains everything on a level he understands.

She is not embarrassed by her brother nor afraid to care for him in public.

She points out disabled toilets for me when we are out ‘just in case my brother needs to be changed mum’, and she knows his triggers for meltdowns.

I have never had to sit down with her and explain her brother diagnosis or had to write down the best ways to handle him. She has mastered all that by watching and living daily with a disabled sibling.

Living with a brother with complex needs does affect her negatively but there is also a positive too.

While she may not yet have the full vocabulary or confidence to talk in detail about her brother her actions show an awareness that is so beautiful.

She was asked recently what she wanted to do when she was older and she said she didn’t know.

She then came home and told me how questions like that are so hard because she just thought about her brother knowing he could never answer that either.

She never asks if he will ever read or write or play games like her. She never asks if he will get better or go to her school one day like she did when he was younger.

Instead she knows he is who he is and that he is very precious and needs people to look out for him.

As my son gets older I will be looking for carers for him to allow me to get some respite.

When I think about the sort of person I want guiding my son, meeting his needs and supporting him I know exactly the sort of person I want: someone just like his sister.

I won’t always be around for my son, but while he has his sister I know he will be in very safe hands indeed.

His diagnosis of quadriplegic cerebral palsy GMFCS V, didn’t really mean much to us in the early days.

We’d never heard of cerebral palsy, had no idea what the GMFCS ranking meant and were really feeling our way in the dark.

Medical professionals were so busy trying to manage our expectations of what William wouldn’t be able to do, they forgot to focus on helping him to learn the skills he might have been able to do.

We were always given doom and gloom predictions about his future “he’ll never walk” “he won’t be able to sit on his own”, “he won’t be able to tell the difference between you and a neighbour”.

Instead of focusing on the things he might be able to do and helping him to make sense of those.

It was as if these, so called, professionals had some sort of crystal ball which wasn’t functioning quite right.

Had they bothered to try the old trick of turning it on and off again perhaps it might have been able to provide us with some small glimmers of hope in those darkest days.

Maybe that crystal ball would have told us “He will be the happiest child you’ll ever meet and will have the most infectious laugh you ever heard” and “He will enjoy sitting in his wheelchair people watching and snooping on stranger’s conversations.”

If it had, perhaps those first few years might have been a little different.

Of course, it is important to be realistic and not provide false hope but is false hope worse than no hope?

Realistic hope back then would have managed our expectations whilst giving us a sense of hope for the future.

Some of those predictions were of course right.  William can’t walk, and he needs support to sit up, but are those two skills really all that important?

They were way off with the prediction about his vision though!

He wears glasses, but his vision is low on the list of problems he has to deal with and his face will light up as soon as someone he knows walks into the room.

He has no trouble recognising people!

William may not be like other little boys his age but that doesn’t mean life is all doom and gloom.

Far from it in fact! We laugh and enjoy ourselves just like other families.

William was a sheep in the school nativity this year and he got so excited about Christmas and all the presents Santa brought.

Life is different, we have to plan things a little more and our house is full of equipment instead of toys but is that really so bad?

We are now supported by an incredible team of experts who focus on the, ‘cans’, instead of the, ‘can nots’, and will do whatever they can to make sure William lives his life to the full.

I hope the crystal balls that the medical professionals rely on so heavily have been upgraded by now, almost 9 years later, so that families like mine aren’t stripped of all hope for the future simply because they are afraid of giving false hopes.

Whether it is for diabetes, assistance in predicting seizures, or even mobility, there is no doubt that these therapy dogs can help tremendously.

Of course, with such trained dogs, comes the price to help raise them into what makes them useful.

As far as my research has informed me, these prices can go as high as $15,000 and even higher!  Most families that I have seen usually do fundraisers or donations to help pay this.

Unfortunately my son is three years old, and at the moment he is frightened of dogs and raising such a large amount of money doesn’t seem feasible.

But me being the mom that I am and strive to be, I knew I could find him another pet in which he could have for emotional support.

For me, emotional support can mean just having something other than family or human, to love and care for.

This year, we decided to take that step and bought my little Oliver a rabbit. Why a rabbit, you may ask?

We found that Oliver was not scared of small, calm animals like our household cat, and now new, rabbit. He decided to name her Sky High (because he loves Paw Patrol).

When we brought her home, she was just two months of age. A tiny little thing!

Love came easy for him. He bundled her up in a blanket and would just love on her, until I told him it was time to give her a break.

Not only has she been a great pet for him to love on, it has shown his responsibility too.

He is always so excited when I tell him it is time for him to help me feed her, change her bedding, and give her some water for drinking.

With her having a ground level cage, it is easy for him to help me, as my son cannot stand nor walk on his own without assistance.

His little Sky was handled by hand since birth, so we don’t ever have to worry about her nibbling his fingers.

Our little bunny has been a great addition for my son, where a dog has shown to be too much stimulation for him to handle.

For Oliver being such a young age, a bunny is easy to keep up with, and is a little easier for us to afford right now while we introduce things like care and responsibility to him.