Stretcher-Bearers – a Column by Lori Dunham

Raising a child with a physical disability can be a balancing act of sorts. It requires a balance between focusing attention on the child who needs extra care and the family’s other children. It requires balancing time to fulfill responsibilities other than medical appointments. But the…

Learning to live with a chronic illness takes some getting used to, and oftentimes adjustments are needed to help our loved ones live the life they envisioned for themselves. What came easily before doesn’t always come easily now.   When our daughter Grace got sick as a…

Our little girl was handed to us on a cool, gray April day in the back room of a government building in Nanchang, China. She had just celebrated her first birthday in the orphanage that sheltered her that first year of life, and we impatiently counted…

Our story starts with a whole lot of waiting. I have never claimed to be a patient person, and when it came to my daughter Grace’s declining health, I was anything but patient in finding a diagnosis. Complicating matters was the fact that we were about to move…

Christmas is by far my favorite time of the year. Holiday music, trimming the tree, baking cookies, family gatherings — none of this can happen soon enough or long enough for my liking. As a military family, we traveled for the holidays for many years.

If you had told me three years ago that I would be writing about my daughter’s rare disease and my experiences as her caregiver, I would not have believed you. This is a job I never envisioned on my resume. My children were supposed to…