I started caring for both of my parents from the age of 6 - I became a carer overnight when my mum had an accident but despite countless hospital visits, doctors involved and most people knowing I had 2 disabled parents, I didn't become an identified young carer until I was 14 years old - when my attendance plummeted at school because I just couldn't cope anymore. Trying to balance caring for 2 parents with...Continue reading→

My name is Amy and I am fifteen years old. I’m sat on the floor in my room trying to revise for my exams which are next week. Suddenly I hear my mum calling from the bathroom. I wiggle open the old lock on the door and find her sat on the floor feeling a bit unwell and a little upset. I think quickly about what would make me feel better in her situation and...Continue reading→

I was 20 when my mother had a brain stoke while riding her bicycle, broke her hip and was blood transfused, during an orthopaedic surgery,  with infected blood. She got Hepatitis C, which was the cause of her death, 19 years after the day of the brain stroke. I was informed about the stroke while phoning home from a public telephone (there were no mob phones at that time) to tell my parents that I...Continue reading→

When my mother’s relatively routine spinal surgery went wrong nearly seventeen years ago, leaving her in chronic pain and unable to work, my brother gave up his life as he knew it. We call him “the sacrificial lamb.” Like Jesus Christ before him, my older brother laid down his entire life at the feet of the people he loves. At 18 years old, my brother was entering his sophomore year in college. He was doing...Continue reading→