Here Comes the Sun
— Joelene Wand

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Joelene Wand is a lawyer from Sydney, Australia. Her son, Jude, was diagnosed with Angelman syndrome in 2024, at age 1. She hopes to provide strength and encouragement to caregivers while figuring out life with this condition alongside them. Her son’s enduring determination and positivity inspires her to be active, so when not weightlifting her son, she enjoys running, swimming, and pilates.

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Traveling with a child with Angelman syndrome is easier in the early years

After my son, Jude, was diagnosed with Angelman syndrome at 16 months old, I kept hearing the same comment from other seasoned Angelman parents: “Traveling is so much easier when they’re younger.” At the time, I was skeptical. But now that Jude is 3 and has experienced short- and…

Joelene Wand

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Reflections after a year of early intervention therapy

In September, my husband and I marked a year since my son Jude, then 9 months old, started early intervention therapy, the standard of treatment for managing speech, movement, and balance disorders in those living with Angelman syndrome. A doctor who’d been treating Jude for sleep…

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Overcoming fear after an Angelman syndrome diagnosis

At 11:12 a.m. on Christmas Eve last year, I sent a text. Our son, Jude, had just turned 1, and over the past four months we’d become increasingly worried that he wasn’t meeting his developmental milestones. He was a month away from being assessed for cerebral palsy (a common…

Columns

Here comes the sun after our son’s Angelman syndrome diagnosis

Nothing can prepare you for the beautiful and chaotic roller coaster of raising a child. For a brief moment, we felt as though the path we’d expected to follow went completely off course when we learned our one and only child would live a life of significant disadvantage. My name…