Cooper was diagnosed with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex at 6 weeks old. The months following his diagnosis were filled with many emotions – sadness, anger, fear. When Cooper was approaching his first birthday, one of my sister’s sent me a link to another family’s story. Their daughter was born prematurely and was in the NICU. This mother wrote that during her and her husband’s darkest moments they would often repeat to themselves “this is our story, this is our story”.

For the first time I realized that although we could not change Cooper’s diagnosis, we could absolutely help make his story the best story it could be. That night Dave and I said to each other “we should start something in Cooper’s name”. Hope started to take up a little bit of the space that sadness had been filling for so long. Little did we know that almost exactly one year later, as Cooper approached his second birthday, the Cooper Robertson Foundation would officially launch.

With incredible support from our family, friends and community we started the Cooper Robertson Foundation with the hope of making Cooper’s story about more than just his diagnosis. We wanted to take something that had been hard and unexpected and turn it into something good. 

The purpose of the Cooper Robertson Foundation, a fully registered Canadian charity, is to raise both awareness and funds for Tuberous Sclerosis Complex.