Help Amanda Walk

My request is for help  to fund a medical device that I was recently introduced to that will help me to walk without the assistance of a brace and hopefully without as much pain and difficulty.  It is called the Walkaide  System . It electronically stimulates the nerves and muscles in my leg that just plain don't function.

I have been able to try out this new system, and it was simply amazing! My foot and leg moved in ways that it has not been able to do on it's own for years. I could feel the muscles that have been virtually dead all of these years working again. My father and I were both moved to tears, as this is really something innovative that we have been waiting for for...well...most of my life. The system is expensive and insurance does not cover it (shocker).

My story is long and cumbersome, but I am going to attempt to give a small picture of where my troubles began and how they have effected me throughout my life.  I had problems walking and falling down as a very small child.  After extensive doctor visits, tests, and diagnoses, I was finally diagnosed with a low grade astrocytoma on my spine...a spinal cord tumor.  I had surgery and radiation, but started to have terrible pain that kept me from school and just being a kid.  Much to my families dismay, the tumor had grown.

My parents and I were sent to NYU medical center where I was operated on by a very special man who was able to successfully remove the tumor in a 12 hour surgery.  Unfortunately, there was extensive damage done to my spinal cord that for the most part was irreparable. It was much less frightening than what the tumor would have done, had it not been treated.

I have spent most of my life in and out of physical therapy, braces of some kind or another, and have had multiple surgeries across the years to repair damages to my body all related to this tumor.  It also left me with severe chronic pain that at times is incapacitating. I have difficulty carrying things, climbing stairs, standing, walking more than a short distance, etc.  

As I get older, my right or "good side"  has really started to deteriorate due to carrying the weight of my left side for so many years.  I wear a brace, which I am no longer able to walk without, but day to day life is still quite challenging for me, as a brace can only help so much.  

Even though it is very hard  for me to share my private life and ask for help,  I would love to get to the best place that I can physically and relieve some of my pain so that I can live life as fully as possible and keep walking as I get older.
  So if you find it in your heart, please help me fund my hope and dream of doing what others take for granted: walking without pain and braces on my leg.  Thank you and God Bless.