Jen's physiotherapy fund
Donation protected
Mark and I have three daughters; Jenifer, Izabelle and Roxanne. We are very lucky to have such a wonderful family.
Jen is currently having 2 hours of private physiotherapy a week and the cost of this is more than we can afford and unfortunately, the NHS can only see her once a half term-once a term which is not enough. This is where this page comes in. Here's Jen's story:
Jenifer was born in 2008, in the early months of her life we noticed she wasn't meeting the developmental milestones that every other baby her age was. She didn't sit stand or walk. Eventually just before her 2nd birthday we were given the news that Jen has Cerebral Palsy.
Cerebral Palsy (CP) affects the way her muscles move, it makes it very difficult to do all the things we all take for granted. Her consultant once told us not to expect much from her. He didnt think she would ever walk, talk or feed herself. We didn't agree with him and set about doing as much physiotherapy at home as we could. Slowly Jen learnt to do a few things, although not in the right ways.
Mark was looking at the news one morning in 2011, being ex-military he looked at everything that mentioned soldiers. He came across an article about a soldier raising money for their daughter to have surgery in the USA. As we read the article we realised the child had the same condition as Jen, the same prognosis from the doctors here and even looked a bit similar!
We'd never heard of Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy before, or Dr Park, but with a new sense of hope we started doing some research into this surgery. We discovered that it was carried out in St Louis, MO. After getting in touch with the team at St Louis Children's Hospital and sending all of Jen's medical history she was accepted as a good candidate for surgery.
Dr Park predicted that Jen would walk with aid. When I saw the letter saying yes and how far he thought she could progress I broke down crying. It was like all our prayers had been answered. The downside was the cost; £45,000 for a 5 week stay in St Louis, that included all her hospital costs and our stay.
After 4 months of intensive fundraising we raised the money and were set to fly. Scared doesn't even cover how we were feeling as surgery was scheduled for 26th January 2012.
SDR involved cutting the nerves in the spine that were causing the difficulties moving. After 4 hours in theatre we were allowed to see Jen in recovery. She was to lay flat for 3 days to allow her spine to heal. On day 3 Jen was allowed out of bed to go to therapy. That day, at 3 years and 9 months old, she took her first very wobbly aided steps.
The path to where she is now has been phenomenal, she has passed all of our expectations and has improved more than we every imagined possible. Her wheelchair now lives in a cupboard and only brought out when she is exceptionally tired.
It's not been an easy time though and has revolved around a huge amount of physiotherapy. For the first couple of years after surgery we did this with minimal help from the NHS and a home programme. We knew that for Jen to reach her full potienal she needed far more proffessional input and with the NHS therapy reducing we had to find someone privately.
Thats when we found Kids Physio Works in Colchester. They are an incredible team of children's physiotherapists who really believe in the children they treat.
Jen mostly works with Neil, she absolutely adores him and for the first time in her life was asking when we would next be going to physio!! I'm sure anyone can appreciate that therapy isn't much fun at times and to have her ask to go we knew we'd found the right person to work with her.
As with all private medical treatment Jen's therapy at Kids Physio Works costs money, £140 a session to be precise. To start with we used the little money that was left from Jen's surgery fund and then started to fund it ourselves but this is just not sustainable for us.
So here we are back in the same place we were in 2011, asking for your support to help Jen achieve her full potiental. All money we raise we be put towards Jen's therapy with Kids Physio Works. In the last year we've been going Jen's improvement has been incredible and we know she can improve further.
All this work she is doing now means more for her future and her independace. The more she does now the more she will be able to do as she gets older and that will have a massive impact on her life. The therapy is ongoing and will be a huge part of her life for the forseeable future. We've set the goal at £7,500 as this is a session a week for a year (£140 x 52 = £7280, the extra £220 allows us to start the year after)
From Mark and I thank you will never truely express just how grateful we are, and just how much this means to us.
Jen is currently having 2 hours of private physiotherapy a week and the cost of this is more than we can afford and unfortunately, the NHS can only see her once a half term-once a term which is not enough. This is where this page comes in. Here's Jen's story:
Jenifer was born in 2008, in the early months of her life we noticed she wasn't meeting the developmental milestones that every other baby her age was. She didn't sit stand or walk. Eventually just before her 2nd birthday we were given the news that Jen has Cerebral Palsy.
Cerebral Palsy (CP) affects the way her muscles move, it makes it very difficult to do all the things we all take for granted. Her consultant once told us not to expect much from her. He didnt think she would ever walk, talk or feed herself. We didn't agree with him and set about doing as much physiotherapy at home as we could. Slowly Jen learnt to do a few things, although not in the right ways.
Mark was looking at the news one morning in 2011, being ex-military he looked at everything that mentioned soldiers. He came across an article about a soldier raising money for their daughter to have surgery in the USA. As we read the article we realised the child had the same condition as Jen, the same prognosis from the doctors here and even looked a bit similar!
We'd never heard of Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy before, or Dr Park, but with a new sense of hope we started doing some research into this surgery. We discovered that it was carried out in St Louis, MO. After getting in touch with the team at St Louis Children's Hospital and sending all of Jen's medical history she was accepted as a good candidate for surgery.
Dr Park predicted that Jen would walk with aid. When I saw the letter saying yes and how far he thought she could progress I broke down crying. It was like all our prayers had been answered. The downside was the cost; £45,000 for a 5 week stay in St Louis, that included all her hospital costs and our stay.
After 4 months of intensive fundraising we raised the money and were set to fly. Scared doesn't even cover how we were feeling as surgery was scheduled for 26th January 2012.
SDR involved cutting the nerves in the spine that were causing the difficulties moving. After 4 hours in theatre we were allowed to see Jen in recovery. She was to lay flat for 3 days to allow her spine to heal. On day 3 Jen was allowed out of bed to go to therapy. That day, at 3 years and 9 months old, she took her first very wobbly aided steps.
The path to where she is now has been phenomenal, she has passed all of our expectations and has improved more than we every imagined possible. Her wheelchair now lives in a cupboard and only brought out when she is exceptionally tired.
It's not been an easy time though and has revolved around a huge amount of physiotherapy. For the first couple of years after surgery we did this with minimal help from the NHS and a home programme. We knew that for Jen to reach her full potienal she needed far more proffessional input and with the NHS therapy reducing we had to find someone privately.
Thats when we found Kids Physio Works in Colchester. They are an incredible team of children's physiotherapists who really believe in the children they treat.
Jen mostly works with Neil, she absolutely adores him and for the first time in her life was asking when we would next be going to physio!! I'm sure anyone can appreciate that therapy isn't much fun at times and to have her ask to go we knew we'd found the right person to work with her.
As with all private medical treatment Jen's therapy at Kids Physio Works costs money, £140 a session to be precise. To start with we used the little money that was left from Jen's surgery fund and then started to fund it ourselves but this is just not sustainable for us.
So here we are back in the same place we were in 2011, asking for your support to help Jen achieve her full potiental. All money we raise we be put towards Jen's therapy with Kids Physio Works. In the last year we've been going Jen's improvement has been incredible and we know she can improve further.
All this work she is doing now means more for her future and her independace. The more she does now the more she will be able to do as she gets older and that will have a massive impact on her life. The therapy is ongoing and will be a huge part of her life for the forseeable future. We've set the goal at £7,500 as this is a session a week for a year (£140 x 52 = £7280, the extra £220 allows us to start the year after)
From Mark and I thank you will never truely express just how grateful we are, and just how much this means to us.
Organizer
Charlotte Clare
Organizer
