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THE NEWS Our daughter was born prematurely and spent eight weeks in NICU and SCBU - but we were just relieved she was alive. The Dad Pod podcast episode details our journey to this point for friends, family and anybody else living with Cerebral Palsy to hear. My wife (Hannah) and I knew that our daughter would live with Cerebral Palsy early in her life, but we made the difficult choice to keep it quiet telling just our immediate family, information we shared only with key people for many years. We didn’t want to put her in a box, instead approaching this challenge with an optimistic outlook. Why? We assessed the information during our appointments with medical professionals and specialists and decided to focus on our daughter’s milestones (or inch-stones as is more the case) without the ‘noise’ of people heaping sympathy on us. The reality of having a child that had been born with unseen imperfections was emotionally difficult, and all brand new to us so we had to learn fast. There was still much to work towards and achieve, especially in those formative 1,000 days, so we chose to focus on working for our daughter’s development. The big goal was getting her standing and walking on her own. At 6 years and 4 months of age, she finally did it. So, when I was asked by my friend and former colleague Bryce Casey from The Rock’s Morning Rumble radio show (also a parent of a NICU premmie) to tell our story on his Dad Pod podcast, we felt like it was time to talk and celebrate our daughter and our achievement as parents. Parenting is difficult, but we hope you can take encouragement or helpful information from hearing our journey. You can listen to Nathan on the Dad Pod here: Rova: www.tinyurl.com/bddx779x Apple: www.tinyurl.com/4jwdk48f Spotify: www.tinyurl. com/57ax8ttk * Nathan is also the Executive Producer/Researcher of The Cerebral Palsy Podcast featured on Pg 6. The Power of Talk BY NATHAN HART Go digital! Below : Nathan Hart shares his journey as Dad to a daughter with Cerebral Palsy in the Dad Pod podcast. Independent Living Charitable Trust (ILCT) is committed to making daily living easier for disabled people and whānau through assistive products, services and support. They’ve received funding from the Spectrum Foundation to repair mobility equipment for free for anyone in Auckland who can’t afford repairs. ILCT knows there is equipment in the community which needs to be repaired, but the repair bill is prohibitive for low-income whānau and older people living on a pension. ILCT may be able to fix it for free to get you mobile! Equipment can be dropped to one of their stores in Browns Bay, Royal Oak and Botany or they can collect and drop off within the Auckland area as the repairs team is based in East Tāmaki. They can fix almost any type of mobility equipment, but don’t work on ACC or Health NZ equipment as they have their own repairs process. The most common pieces of equipment ILCT see are walkers, wheelchairs, scooters, etc. For more information go to www.ilsnz.org/pages/funded- repairs , email repairs@ilsnz.org or phone 0800 625 100. Funded mobility equipment repairs If you are receiving this copy of The Review in the post and no longer require a physical copy, or you’d prefer to read the magazine digitally, please let us know. You’ll be helping us save some costs, and you’ll help save some trees! Email cpsociety@cpsociety.org.nz to ‘go digital’ and we’ll add you to the email list. 8 | THE REVIEW SEPT 2024