“Charlie is the worst lottery ticket, but never wanted to miss it”
Own image: Islean and Charlie
When Islean is told that the doctors can no longer do anything for Charlie (1.5), her world collapses. A year later, the sadness is still there every day, but there is also room for a careful first holiday trip and a pregnancy.
Read part I here
“We were back home, but we didn’t dare to live. Book a vacation? Way too exciting, soon Charlie wouldn’t wake up. If he slept for a long time, I immediately worried. Was he still breathing? I don’t work. I could take Charlie to the medical facility, but what if he dies there? I could never forgive myself for that.”
To enjoy
But now, a year later, the sadness is increasingly fading into the background. Even if it’s just for a while. “I couldn’t imagine that at first, but we can let it go a little better. Recently I’ve been thinking: why shouldn’t we book a holiday? You can always cancel. So we went to safari park Beekse Bergen. Charlie and I didn’t get out of the house, but we could still look at the giraffes from behind the glass.” Those are the days with a golden edge.
“If he slept for a long time, I immediately worried. Was he still breathing?”
“Happiness is in the little things: in the book we read together, the toy I give him. I do everything I can to make the days as pleasant as possible for him. It’s the little things you do with a baby a few weeks old that are the big things for our Charlie.”
Family expansion
Above all, there is a lot of room for love – for all three children, because the family is now one baby brother richer. “Connor was born last December. We had it investigated beforehand whether the genetic abnormalities came from us, but that was not the case. Charlie has ‘just’ had bad luck, the chance of this deviation is 1% Then we dared. It remained exciting, when the delivery came into view I thought… what if he also belongs to that 1 percent?” Fortunately, Connor is born healthy.
Islean: “It may sound strange, but precisely because Colin, our oldest, loves Charlie so much, we gave him a little brother or sister to grow up with when Charlie is gone. Not that anyone could ever replace Charlie, of course not. We don’t know how long he has left, but we enjoy every moment he is there. Charlie it may be the worst lottery ticket, but I never wanted to miss it.”
The Story of Charlie
Islean writes about her life with Charlie, for her own processing and to draw attention to children of the heart. “Heart defects are still the number one (!) cause of death among children. That is why it is so important that there is enough attention for it and, above all, that a lot of money is raised for research. Islean raises money for other heart children with Het Winkeltje Voor Charlie. For example, if you buy a lucky romper, a heart child in the hospital will also receive one.
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