People always say that a mother just knows when something is wrong. I knew in my heart that something wasn’t right, but when doctor after doctor tells you you’re just being paranoid, you start to second guess yourself. When Archie was finally diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, our lives changed forever.

Archie has always been small for his age. The first thing we started noticing was how often Archie would get a cold. He’d really struggle with feeling rundown constantly from them. We took him to the doctors a lot for this, but they always said there was nothing wrong.

We persuaded the GP to do some blood tests after a while, and it came back that Archie was anaemic. We hoped this meant there was a quick fix for our concerns, but his fatigue and illnesses didn’t improve despite being on iron supplements.

During this time, we also noticed he had a bit of a strange walk. Before long, we had to get a buggy for Archie for days out as he would say how tired his legs were. We were distraught and at a loss for what to do next.

When we eventually got referred to a specialist hospital, we finally felt listened to and they ran some genetic testing. I don’t remember the hour and a half drive home after our appointment to discuss the results. We just kept thinking it was a mistake when the consultant told us our boy has muscular dystrophy.

I know Archie’s a fighter. If he wants to do something, he’ll make it happen. When he wanted to learn to ride a bike, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be possible and tried to prepare him. He just looked at me and said, “I will ride my bike.” He practised every day, never gave up, and, eventually, he got it.

You don’t learn to become okay with a diagnosis like this overnight though. Some days are harder than others. But the way we’ve been able to feel like we have some control in this situation, is to fundraise and raise awareness of muscular dystrophy, in the hope this will support funding for new treatments.