You just found out that your child has some form of Muscular Dystrophy. Imagine how devastated you would be. What do you do? Besides giving you a diagnosis and following up with appointments, the doctors are not very helpful after that point. You spend countless hours online researching this horrible disease, which only leaves you feeling helpless. What you really need is another parent to talk to that is going through the same thing. Where do you find these people? Who or what organization do you contact?

I was in this situation when my son was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy on 12/1/05, at the age of 4. I e-mailed everyone I knew asking them if they could help or knew of someone that could. Miracuously, a friend of mine knew a family whose son had the exact same illness. We contacted them almost immediately and they invited us to their support group. This is exactly what we were looking for. Not only did they point us in the right direction as to what we should do next, which doctors or places we should see, but they were also there to give us a "shoulder to cry on."

Well, I have been researching this disease for nearly 2.5 years. Therefore, I am now one of the veterans at that support group. It is great to be able to offer advice to new parents. Furthermore, I would like to offer this same support to anyone online.