Last week was a busy week.  We just about managed to pause for breath along the way and achieved far more than we thought was possible.  Having taken a couple of days off from my blog – well I thought you’d probably had more than enough of me last week – I wanted to revisit NEAW 2015 to give a round-up of all our activities:

E for Educate – I appeared on local radio, there was an article in our local newspaper about NEAW and even a follow-up article this week to talk about what we did. I blogged daily and posted regular updates about our life with EGID, achieving 600 views of my blog during the week as well as numerous shares on both FB and Twitter.

D for Donate – With the help and generosity of friends, family and fellow music lovers, we raised a fantastic £260 for FABED.  Thank you so much, I know that money is going to a great cause and will make a difference to EGID families who need their support just as much as we do.

U for Unite – WE DID IT!  Mike and I survived a week “eating like M” and discovered just how difficult a challenge it is.  I was filled, yet again, with absolute awe and admiration for M’s ability to eat meal after meal after meal consisting of nothing more than chicken, rice and cucumber.  I’m also incredibly proud to be able to share with you that G also did her bit on the Friday and ate “mostly like M“, with just a little bit extra of goats cheese and fruit to keep her smiling during lunchtime at school.  It’s the first year she’s asked to join in our challenge and I’m so impressed that she managed to stick it out without a wobble.

C for Change – I hope we managed to change people’s attitude to and understanding of EGID during the week.  It was great to see the hashtag #morethanfoodallergies trending across FB and Twitter because that’s the key point I wanted to communicate last week: that whilst M struggles with food, his allergies are only a very small part of a much bigger picture.

A for Awareness – We raised awareness in everything we did.  Pink ribbons adorned our clothes, pump backpacks and hair, FABED awareness bands could be spotted around our wrists and M shared his video with the world.  It has had nearly 400 hits on YouTube, which made M’s week and something that started as a small project to encourage him to communicate his feelings about his illness morphed into a fantastic tool that allowed him to actively take part in raising awareness this week.

T for Thanks – I said my thanks and expected nothing more, but received some lovely compliments back from those of you reading and sharing my blog.  I’m just a Mum trying to do the best I can for my children and not always getting it right, but it was very nice to be told that I am “…the supermummiest mummy of the lot…” especially by someone who’s not even a family member and therefore under no obligation to believe that to actually be the case!

E for Engage – It may have been the hardest blog post to write for me, but M and G proved that they could engage with their school-mates in the most impressive of ways.  M presented his video at school throughout the week and had a fantastic response.  At the end of the week, I received this lovely and completely unexpected e-mail from G’s teacher to tell me about her class’s response to what M had to say:

“M came to visit us with his presentation earlier on in the week and I was amazed, not only by the presentation, but also by his maturity and bravery.  He was just amazing and a real inspiration to us all.  G was also fantastic – helping answer some of the children’s questions and supporting M in the process.  They are both absolutely amazing – a big well done to them and your whole family.“

And that just about sums up NEAW 2015 for us, so it must be time to put our feet up for another year…well, a Mum can dream, can’t she?!