Home
Mitochondrial Blog
What is Mitochondria
Jack White my son
Dads page
Mitochondrial Resources
Website Links
Team Jack
Internet Tools
mitochondrial ebooks
Newsletter
Early Intervention
Dads Against Disease
Advertise
Contact Us
Mums Page
Mito BOOKS
Donate

XML RSS
What is this?
Add to My Yahoo!
Add to My MSN
Add to Google

Dads Pages

 

Dad's Journey

I promised my son Jack when he was only 6 hours old and only a tiny baby in the palm of my hand
 that I would be there to protect him and keep him safe  until he is man enough to look after himself

I intend to keep that promise.


Dad's page: My name is Trevor White and this page has been designed with resources for Dad's trying to deal with the issues of watching our children struggle with genetic disease.

I am not a shrink or social worker or any bullshit like that, I am just a bloke who knows how painful this has been for me.  This page is here to let you know that there are people and resources out there to help get you through this and to  help support your family and children when they need you the most.

My son Jack has a big beautiful SMILE, this SMILE keeps getting BIGGER EVERYDAY and that drives me forward to finding a cure and saving my son.

But where do I start. I started this website to try and answer the unanswerable questions. You may ask what are you talking about, but just think about everytime you ask a simple question to one of the many specialists you visit.  In my experience, their answer normally leaves me with many more questions .

There are so many issues to try and deal with at any given time.  I've only been trying to get my head around Jack's condition for a little over 3 years now.  It was not long ago, when an australian Genetics specialist told me that my son may only have a couple of years to live.  Test after test, doctor's appointment after doctor's appointment - still with little idea of what the diagnosis is and even fewer answers, my wife finally managed to get an appointment with this genetics specialist from Sydney.

My wife and I sat patiently in this outpatient clinic in Newcastle, listening to him.  I remember that appointment like it was only a moment ago, it will forever be burned into my memory, like a reoccuring nightmare.

We were in the doctors' Newcastle rooms. Jack was sitting on my lap looking up at me with his beautiful smile and cheeky eye's and I was making a joke of his chunky thighs and short stature and saying that he was going to make a great rugby player one day with his solid little legs.

The very next words to come out of this specialist was, he said "I don't expect your son to live beyond 3 years of age".  At that moment you may as well have cut my heart out.  I have never felt such pain.  My breath was taken away, I felt myself choking on thin air, not believing this person but knowing there must be some truth to his statement or why would he say such an awful thing?  I really just wanted to just kick the shit out of this person how dare he say such a thing to us!  Where was his evidence to prove this statement, this horrible outcome?

To base this statement only on what he knew at that time and what he has been exposed to in the past.  How can he know such a thing? The truth is that he and nobody else knows, what the future holds for our children. We are entitled to believe our children will live full and complete lives and outlive us as their parents.

If we hold on to that belief we have the opportunity to change the future and give our children their right for life.

This has been the longest year of my life.  I don't really recall those first couple of months after that specialists' statement.  My life has been changed forever, it has been a very painful road to have travelled to this point, I feel as though I have aged ten years in such a short space of time. 

I now sit writing a website to try and help other people know they are not the only ones struggling to deal with this burden we carry.

This journey we take is just one day at a time....

However, I believe collectively we will find a cure to mitochondrial disease,


Be Active In This Fight!



The only form of defence to protect our children is to attack the threat, the threat is 'doing nothing' (apathy). 

Choose  to take ACTION and take CONTROL for you and your children, by developing the knowledge, skills and attitude to regain the initiative.


Fight Mitochondrial Disease and
Help Find a Cure

We must join forces and use our collective energy, drive, determination and resources to find a cure.

Individually we remain unheard,
Together we become unstoppable!
Together we find or develop a cure
and save our precious children
Together we have a voice
We Must Demand a Cure

I know why I started this website because I cannot standby waiting for my son to die when I know there is a cure
I know this in my gut...

You Must Feel and Know The Same thing

We cannot count on our politicians or the church or even the many members of our scientific community to save our children. There are many well meaning people and dedicated people out there however, there are also many who appear to only throw mud at each other in a bid to score points when real lives are at stake.
 
JOIN ME IN THIS FIGHT
 YOU HAVE THE SKILLS WE NEED

Contact us anytime, visit our contacts page

Should you need some professional assistance to regain your fight
consider visiting the following site:

Beyond Blue

Jack with big goals

Additional Resources

My current goal for 2008

One of the greatest challenges I've found has been the loss in income, my wife Charmaine once earned as much as I did and like a lot of parents we planned for her to go back to work part-time after Jacks birth.


That was three years ago and my wife works harder now that she ever did, Jack is fulltime employment plus some. We changed our plans a lot in the last three years. Many of our decisions were based upon what was best for Jack and the financial implications.

If money is not a concern for you this will be a easier road to travel but no less painful, however you should have a plan in place because your life will have many interesting turns.

Money is normally associated with family stress, we see it all the time on the poor news weeks some unfortunate family tossed out on their butt because they could not pay the rent, bills etc, these are people with normal kids and normal problems.

In Britain families with a disabled child or children are amoungst some of the poorest people in the country. I have not seen any stats for Australia, however I know there are many families that are struggling to get by.

Some of these families don't even own a decent reliable car to get their child to hospital.

Life with a disabled child can compound normal issue's ten fold, if you haven't excepted this realilty yet it's time to take a cold can of "harden the fuck up" out of the fridge and take a big gulp. I'm not going to bullshit you and say it's easy, I still have some pretty dark days, it is very frustrating and there will be many difficult times ahead but the rewards are worth it.

My little boy Jack brings immense joy to my life, every little achievement for him is compounded by our joy.

But there is a down side to give your child the equipment and resources required to improve their potential requires a great deal more money than a able bodied child.

I used to own a 40ft cruising yacht, my retirement plan. She was a casualty of Jacks success fund. The $10,000 a year to berth and maintain her, money I would spend on Rosie was now required to supplement a more important cause, my son's future. The sale of Rosie and my dream of the Pacific was hard but it put money in the mortgage, keeping the wolves from the door.

That was only the start, equipment for disabled children does not cost $100's but is discussed as $1000's. There are many people getting wealthy off the backs of hard working families just trying to provide their kids with the essentials
.



I work for the ARMY

The fact I'm a employee with only limited scope to earn more money caused me many a sleepless night. I struggled with the concept of leaving the ARMY for a higher paying job and greater potential to earn more money for the future expense's that are always there but the problem was I couldn't risk being without a wage or being put off work at anytime, I really need regular income for the vast array of bill's coming in.


Whilst there is always the chance of being put off work in a regular job, I had to face upto the fact my ARMY job being no less risky, I have lost a lot of mates to the ARMY machine, good men taken in their prime. The Army moves on within weeks of your death but it is the families who suffer for a very long time.

I was in Afghanistan only last year, the incredible carnage on both sides made me realise. As the only income source for my family I could not afford to get injured or killed. I have responsibilites to people that need me.

So I continued in earnest my planning and the researching of additional income sources, investment property, shares, options, currency trading on the forex market. I have spent thousands of dollars on courses and information but I now have several income sources that are slowly supplementing my wage and will one day replace it when I leave the ARMY.

I had been studying internet marketing prior to Jacks birth but with his problems one month slipped past to one year and then a second. I finally caught my breath and started planning a exit statergy from the ARMY with multiple income sources from internet business and other investments.

I am mostly working on building up passive income sources so that if something should happen to me the income will continue for the people I provide for.

All of the above planning has helped move me forward finacially, but it is the business I have setup on the internet that makes real sense to me.

My internet business consist of several income producing websites, a marketing service for offline business wanting to get online and a consulting service. Most websites don't make any money, they are just expensive advertising and cost thousands every year to maintain. Most are maintained by companies who prey on the consumers ignorance. Most of these companies don't realise that if their clients earn more money then so will they.

Why tell you any of this,
easy DON"T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE.

START PLANNING TODAY

I intend to teach anybody who has a child with a medical condition and who wants to learn everything I know about creating additional income sources from the internet and investing for free. There will still be costs to incure, but you will not pay me a cent.

OK so Why?, thats easy for me to answer. So that YOU earn enough money for all your families needs, plus enough to spend on Mitochondrial research and finding cures.

And if your like me
 your focus will be finding a cure for
our kids.


The more people with the resources to do that the sooner
I save
my son's life


So get onboard and start making money, if I can do it so can you!

There's only one catch you must offer the same service to other people who have kids with this insidious disease.

Lets get them out creating empires

 and earning towards a cure.

Go to my Tools page and START




Is it easy NO - Does it work YES


You will find all the resources I use listed on the resources page. I list them in business units, as this is how I see them and how I use them.

I provide reference to those tools that have made me money.

You may want to check out my friend Lou's Website, Lou is a work at home Mum. She has developed a web business that is offline and online.

Lou recently retired from her day job so that she could stay home and look after her kids and continue to build a business for her family.

Lou provides Free DVD's and also Books that have great ideas and program's that can help you earn extra income, I use many of the ideas to supplement our family's income.

The Resources Page is COMING soon
I will asking Lou to provide further tips
and idea's for WAHM's and
 a few Dads


style="font-family: Arial;">
I also list books to read, you have to get your head straight and start planning for your successful future. There are to many people who have a dependancy attitude, they want the government to look after them and their child.

Well let me tell you I've seen the service the government provides and in most case's it excellent, but more often than not you get what you pay for.

If your not paying for it and there are hundreds of kids all needing equipment and services. You can end up with equipment that is rubbish and health professionals straight out of UNI.

Many are very motivated, some are great, some are idiots but the last thing you need is a motivated idiot working on your child, been there done that, not any more.

We are fortunate that all of the health professionals employed to work with Jack are experts in their choosen fields, however we are very selective. If we cannot find those employed within the government funded programs.

I now pay for the services and equipment that my son deserves. If it's not the best then it's not good enough, we only have a short window to build a solid base for his future development.

Visit my resources

The Host I use For This Site



footer for dads page page