‘All I could think was that my son had a broken heart’: mum writes about life with a terminally ill four-year-old

Norfolk mother Kyra Welch, writes about her experiences with her terminally ill four-year-old son Kaiden Griffin. Kaiden, who grew up in North Creake, near Fakenham, now lives in Holt has an abnormal heart, lungs and veins and the situation is too complex for him to undergo an operation...

Today I struggled.

I struggled right from the word go this morning.

I woke up and just laid there, in my empty bed, and my quiet house.

I felt my eyes start to fill with tears so I wiped them and picked up my phone.

I scrolled through Facebook and saw a post about someone complaining they had broke there phone and they thought it was the end of the world.

I saw a post about someone who'd brought there child there first car I saw another post about a father who was going through the courts to try and see his child because the mother wouldn't let him.

I put my phone down and I cried, not just a little sob, I full on blotchy faced, runny nose, floods of tears cried, and I couldn't stop.

After 5 minutes I heard the tiny little voice from the next room call 'Mummy' so I wiped my tears and I went in to his room, he pretends to be asleep when I go in, so I sat beside his bed.

He opened one eye and then just laughed, that beautiful little sound of laughter and them bright brown eyes creased whilst laughing.

My heart swelled, all the posts I'd seen on Facebook previous to this brought the reality of this life I'm living down on me like a hammer.

I saw someone complaining about the most simple thing, that they had broke there phone.

All I could think was that my son had a broken heart? My son is struggling to physically live with a broken heart but not once does he complain.

I saw someone who'd brought there child there first car and it made me realise that the reality was my child was probably never going to reach the age he could learn to drive or we would be able to buy him his first car.

I saw a father struggling to see his children because out of spite the mother had stopped him, it made me realise that we struggle to spend enough time with Kaiden as it is because one day soon he might not be here and there are people who think it's fine to stop the other parents seeing there child out of spite?

And then I watched this perfect little boy laughing as soon as he'd woke up, without a care in the world, his beautiful little laugh that is the music to my life. This morning I woke up and I struggled, I struggled because I remembered all the realities in my life, but I remembered it is ok not to be ok. It's ok to struggle, it's ok to have bad days, because in this moment in time I have my little boy right by side.

-To read about more of Kyra's experiences, see here.