Bridging the Challenges

Abstract A personal account of family life with a disabled child. The author describes her experience of the grief process following diagnosis, the particular challenges associated with the rare orthopaedic condition, fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), and the effects on the family when one member has extensive needs. She speaks to the value of a support group and summarizes with a list of ten things she has learned as the mother of a disabled child.