One year ago today I voiced the question out loud after contemplating and research the night before. Could Cade possibly have muscular dystrophy? Before this date, I had only heard of muscular dystrophy but knew nothing about it. I texted the question to our friend who is a physical therapist.

And then I waited. She texted back but then decided to call and talk to me. And I think at that point I subconsciously knew that this would be his diagnosis. So I went ahead and scheduled him for a blood test for that afternoon.

His blood test results came back indicating that he likely had muscular dystrophy. And our journey began. This journey has been one like no other.

I remember sitting at my desk at work with shaking hands and making that phone call to the clinic.  I kept thinking that I was going to wake up and this was all going to be a bad dream. Surely Cade couldn’t have something I have only ever heard of before this day. What will we do now?

On June 1 we made the drive out to Children’s Hospital Colorado and have immersed ourselves into learning as much as we can about DMD. There are many frightening things that we had to learn about DMD. Most of all we had to learn a new normal.

At first it was really hard to know that we weren’t dreaming. Our treatment plan consisted of therapy which we had already been doing. The therapy itself changed but we were still only doing therapy.

As we get further along in this journey though, our wish for this to all be a nightmare seems further out of our grasp. We keep adding to our treatment plan although we have it easier than a lot of DMD boys. More difficulties keep being brought to the surface and we keep making small modifications to the way we accomplish things.

As much as I wish for this last year to be a horrible dream, I also know that we have to be careful not to focus on that. There have been many good things that are possible now because of his diagnosis. We have been shown the loving and compassionate nature of our community in abundance.  We have also met some amazing new people.  We are finding and developing the hobbies of both boys.

But most of all I hope that we are displaying God’s love for us as we accept and embrace this new journey we are on.  Because it is by His grace that we have survived this last year of changes.

Blessings.  Lynnette