[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”off” specialty=”off”][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.100″ background_layout=”light”]<\/p>\n
This website is designed in memory of our beautiful baby boy Clae.\u00a0 He was just 2 years, 2 months and 2 days when he contracted bacterial meningitis and died in my arms.\u00a0 It was the hardest day of my husbands and my life, we\u2019ve never felt such intense helplessness or cried so hard and for so long. There is a hole in our hearts that will never heal.<\/p>\n
So his death has inspired this site, not only to educate people on Birthmarks, Meningitis and how to cope with the loss of a child, but also to knock down some prejudices we all have.<\/p>\n
I think we all have preconceived ideas of how a \u201cnormal\u201d person should look or act. When someone doesn\u2019t fit into that criteria we tend to look at him or her differently.\u00a0 Clae was born with a facial birthmark or Port Wine Stain\u00a0 (PWS).\u00a0 He was no different from any other child but was looked at differently by others.\u00a0 Many of you that are reading this right now may have just stumbled upon this site and may have never seen a PWS before.\u00a0 What was your first thought, once you looked at the photo of our little boy?\u00a0 I bet it wasn\u2019t that he was handsome. Even though now that you look again, past his PWS you can see that he was.\u00a0 You probably thought \u201c oh, that poor child,\u201d or \u201c is that a burn\u201d or even may have questioned his mental status.\u00a0 But that\u2019s okay\u2026 we all have these thoughts of someone that looks different. Society has made us think this way\u2026 sadly. What I want to do is make you realize that we all subconsciously do this, so next time when you see someone that may look different from what society considers the \u201cnorm\u201d you may react differently to that person and look past the imperfection, at the person within.<\/p>\n
In the section about Birthmarks I talk about a syndrome called Sturge Webber syndrome or SWS. This syndrome can bring on glaucoma or seizures. Clae was tested for this and was found not to have it. I want to let you know that Doctors are not immune to this preconception that we all have. When we were in the emergency room that fateful night, even the Doctors thought Clae\u2019s posturing, brought on by the pressure on his brain from the meningitis, were asking if this was normal behavior for him. You see, the doctors saw a little boy come into emergency with a PWS, seizing.\u00a0 It\u2019s natural for them to assume he had SWS. Even though we are upset that the slow diagnosis of meningitis assisted in our sons death, I can\u2019t really blame the Doctors for something I\u2019ve been guilty of in the past myself. We have all made assumptions of someone simply by their appearances and I truly wish it hadn\u2019t happened that night. But it did. So let\u2019s make sure it doesn\u2019t happen again. Please, next time you make a first impression, think about if it was simply on appearances alone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_gallery _builder_version=”3.0.100″ show_title_and_caption=”on” show_pagination=”on” gallery_ids=”44,43,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58″ fullwidth=”off” orientation=”landscape” zoom_icon_color=”#2ea3f2″ hover_overlay_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0.9)” background_layout=”light” pagination_font_size_tablet=”51″ pagination_line_height_tablet=”2″ posts_number=”3″ \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”off” specialty=”off”][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.100″ background_layout=”light”] Welcome to Clae\u2019s webpage. This website is designed in memory of our beautiful baby boy Clae.\u00a0 He was just 2 years, 2 months and 2 days when he contracted bacterial meningitis and died in my arms.\u00a0 It was the hardest day of my husbands and my life, we\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-24","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clae.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clae.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clae.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clae.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clae.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clae.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clae.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}