I get lots of help from my parents when it comes to living with my Cerebral Palsy, but I get a lot of help from my younger sister too.

Sophie is a lot younger than me, she’s 12 to be exact, although if you ask her she’ll be quick to point out that she’s almost 13 and nearly a teenager. We love each other dearly, and she already towers over (much to everyone’s amusement but mine) so we all say that she is my ‘big little sister’.

From being really young she’s always been keen to pitch in and help me. I remember when she was about 3 or 4 I had a cold and a really bad sore throat that made me sound quite hoarse. I didn’t really think anything of it when she wondered into the kitchen to get some water but when she came back in she put it in my hand said “I got you this for your throat Niccy.” My heart melted a little bit.

She used to like trying to help push my wheelchair too, but that always scared me because she found it hard to go in a straight line and often bumped into things. I wasn’t very nice about and it wouldn’t let her push most of the time, which I feel really bad about now, but I was a moody teenager.

These days though she still helps just as much by carrying things up and down the stairs and helping me get my shoes on and off. She pretends to moan about it sometimes but I don’t think she minds, not really. I try make it up to her when I can by taking her to the cinema, doing face masks letting her practice hair and make-up on me (she wants to do theatrical make-up when she’s older).

I wasn’t going to write this post because I thought she’d get embarrassed, but she was the one who told me to do it. She even said that I could write whatever I wanted about her. As much as I’d love to wind her up in all the ways that big sister’s always do to their younger siblings, my blog isn’t really the right place for that so instead I’ll just say that I love her millions and do really appreciate everything that she does for me, sometimes without me even having to ask.