Wishes For Olivia

Olivia is our beautiful and bright little girl but she's facing a very different future than we ever expected.In May 2016 Olivia had a routine eye check and the optometrist noticed that she had damage on her retinas and said Olivia should see an ophthalmologist. Two days later the doctor told us that Olivia has Gyrate Atrophy. It's a very rare genetic eye condition, so rare that there are less than 180 reported cases worldwide and very little is known about it. What is known, is that it's irreversible and incurable. After some invasive and thorough testing it was confirmed that Olivia has advanced and active Gyrate Atrophy and it's expected that she will be completely blind by the time she is in her mid-teens. While we would love to believe there will be advances in modern medicine, the doctors have said that even if there was more research and development into the disease, Olivia is too far advanced and time is not on her side. We were all devastated, so completely heartbroken. After an emotional rollercoaster of sadness, anger, grief, frustration and hopelessness we decided that we need to make every moment of her remaining sight count and prepare her as best we can to adjust. We're committed to giving Olivia the best life possible. We are creating a visual bucket list so she can create as many visual memories as possible to hold on to into her adult life. Olivia is not entitled to most Australian funding because she was born in NZ, so we also want to raise money to help buy her some of the tools for learning she will need over the coming years, including an iPad (update: this has been kindly donated!), and a Braille machine. Olivia is a strong and positive child and always seeks to be inclusive, to her it doesn't matter if you look different, act different or sound different - we are all unique and special. We couldn't be more proud of her, and it is incredibly sad she has to go through all of this. If you can help us, by giving just a little, hopefully together we can give Olivia some amazing experiences and the support she needs and deserves. Thank you!