Let me begin by introducing myself and my family.  I am Clare Lally, I am 31 years young and I live in West Dunbartonshire with my partner Derek, 35, and our beautiful twin daughters Holly and Katie (from here on I will refer to them as the Twincesses). 

The Twincesses are nearly five and like all families our kids are our life. We would do anything for our children and that’s exactly what I am going to be blogging about.

You see one of our girls has a life-threatening condition (bulbar palsy) and requires 24-hour care. She also has quadriplegic cerebral palsy and is unable to walk, talk and her life-threatening condition means she is unable to swallow and protect her airway and she is a silent aspirator which means she is always at risk of choking - hence the 24-hour care!

She does have other things like severe gastro reflux, duplex kidney system and a lower field vision impairment. This does not stop her determination and fighting spirit to achieve things in her life. She is our inspiration and hopefully over this blog she will be yours as well.

The Twincesses were born 12 weeks premature, weighing just over 2lb each, and from day 1 it was apparent that Katie had complex health needs. As Holly was thriving and gaining weight, oor wee Katie wasn't.

We spent nearly four months in hospital and a lot of medical training for us to pass nasal-gastric tubes and suction machine training (the suction machine clears anything from Katie's mouth to lessen the risk of it going back down her airway).

It has been a long road that we have been on with a lot of obstacles and brick walls in our path. I know what you are thinking, these obstacles must be about Katie's health and needs, right?

Wrong! It's the constant fight and battle that we have to go through to try and provide our daughters with some kind of quality of life. Our council have been an absolute nightmare and I mean literally!

Because of this constant battle I am now a very active and successful campaigner and advocate. I campaign for the right of disabled children and their families, and also for carers and young carers all over Scotland.

In the past few years I have achieved many things, have been asked to take part in TV appearances, radio interviews and local and national newspapers, and I will continue to fight for and raise the carer's profile. I was also awarded Scotland's Mum of the Year 2010 which I was completely shell-shocked with but privileged and overwhelmed by.

I am hopefully going to bring some reality that some of you will or can relate to! Maybe some of the readers have never had to experience any of the issues that parents and carers have to? Who ever you may be, I just hope you enjoy coming along with us on our journey as much as we enjoy sharing it