Fit For Finley

Hey it’s Liam owner and coach at New Era Fitness Wirral

Fit for Finley is a fundraiser for Finley who’s 15 years old and is about to undergo a full spinal fusion surgery to correct the curvature of his spine

Myself our community are covering 1,000 miles in the month of October to raise some funds to send Finley on a family trip

I’ve known Finley for 9 years, his mum Sara has been a member of our community gym since late 2014. In that time I’ve had the pleasure to meet Finley he’s been to our gym and loves seeing his mum train and lift weights, even trying some exercises himself

He’s a dedicated strong young man and is a inspiration to us all

Unfortunately he wasn’t gifted with what most of us so often take for granted.

Sara, Finleys mum shared this “In lots of ways Fin is a typical 15 year old boy. He doesn’t want to get up for school and gets annoyed about having to do his homework.

In other ways he’s different. He has several brain abnormalities and a global developmental delay diagnosis. When he was diagnosed age two the prognosis was that he would never walk or talk and had a 90% risk of epilepsy.

From 3 to 8 he did intensive rehabilitation at home (6hrs a day, 6 days a week). He learnt to walk and talk (seizure free so far too) and made several trips to the US to see specialists.

Since then he has progressed well and attends a mainstream secondary school with 1-2-1 support. It seemed like all the big challenges were behind him but last October he was diagnosed with scoliosis (curvature of the spine).

His is very severe and the only course of action is a full spinal fusion. This must be done as his heart and lungs are being restricted by his spine. Overtime this would cause complications.

The operation carries significant risks and Fin will have less mobility that he does now post surgery. Understandably he is very nervous about it. He has had is pre op and Alder Hey will do the operation in November or early December.

Fin has this amazing habit of finding the positives in any situation. He has asked me to video him when he wakes up post surgery as the spinal nurse told him that people say all kinds of funny things when they come around!”

Please share and donate anything you can.

Thank you Liam & New Era Fitness Wirral