I visit Blessed By Brenna every day, and I love seeing Brenna's developments - and that beautiful smile. I have cried in empathy and squeeeed in delight while reading many of Courtney's words and looking over the photos. I cheer at at the moon-sized milestones Brenna achieves. And I wince when I see her skin red raw. In all honesty, it is difficult knowing the pain and social challenges of this condition affects others, especially a baby so tiny and unable to articulate their feelings. Life's not fair, but life is also blessed, and I also know that Brenna has and will continue to have many wonderful moments because of and despite of her Ichthyosis.
She and Evan are doing a wonderful job with Brenna and I am so pleased that they have support from their local Illinois community as well as the whole world - which blogging has enabled. I imagine the great unknown looms darkly with having a seriously ill baby like Brenna, but there is light and comfort in having the support from others who have lived with the condition, and also from those that don't have Ichthyosis and may never have heard of it until they read a blog. I particularly love that like me, Courtney and Evan are raising awareness about Ichthyosis by being in control of their story - to avoid sensationalism of a rare and often confronting condition and appearance. Courtney wrote a great response to recent exploitation of Ichthyosis on social media.
Courtney and I keep in touch on Twitter, and she asked me to write a guest post for here blog. I wanted to give the message that Brenna will grow up to be OK, just like me. You can read my full post here.
You can read Brenna's summarised story here. You can also like her Facebook page to keep informed about Brenna's milestones and gush over her cute pictures between blog posts.
A very moving blog. Well done for raising awareness.I had never heard of it until I started reading your blog. All the best.
ReplyDeleteThank you so very much Mary :) I am glad my writing is teaching people about Ichthyosis.
DeleteSo wonderful. Well done Carly and Courtney! Brenna is beautiful and I'm so happy you two are connected.
ReplyDeleteThank you Katie. I hope Courtney, Brenna and I can meet one day!
DeleteSo beautiful.! Indeed, the story is inspirable!
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