Dear Families and Friends

We are almost at the end of another year thinking about the things we have achieved and the things we have learnt to live with. I do enjoy receiving your emails and hearing about the news of our girls' activities.

Recently I attended a medical science conference which was very interesting. It was called From Genome to Therapy, all the kinds of things we have been looking at and waiting for.

One of the experiments was most interesting - it was about the dopamine response in the brain. The mice responded to the signal that they were going to be fed with an increase in dopamine and there was no further spurt of dopamine once they tasted the sugar water.

I thought this lesson was rather like our emotional responses when we hold on to belief we are able to scale mountains we had not ever thought we could manage. It was somehow the message of Christmas where we once again ponder the nature of love and the message of life.

Life is so precious and yet through the busy year we often take it for granted.

A big thank you to Benedict Chapman who has been working on our expanded website. It will be good to be able to put news up as it filters through to us. The Australian Rett Association has said I can share their newsletter with New Zealand families.

Please send me any news to share with other families.

With greetings to you all,

Gillian