Hi. I’m Leo Phillips and I’m asking for help. This is a difficult thing for me to do as I’m not the greatest writer, so please bear with me if I haven't written this with perfect grammar. Some of this story is what I know, some is what he has told me. My dad is a good guy but he has had very little luck over the years. Everything he has done has ended up going wrong whether it be in work or other things in his life. He has tried to do the best he can for us as a family but things have been tough and this is why I am doing this for him.

My dad has been unwell for some time now, probably about fifteen years, around the time I was born. This is when his nerve damage kicked in. It started as pain in his legs, then it spread to his arms, hands and feet. He tells me that sometimes it was stabbing pains, other times total numbness or burning. Medically, this is called Peripheral Neuropathy.

After maybe two years, he noticed that he was having bladder issues, it was taking him ages to pee. Also, his heart was racing all the time, around 120 bpm. He had to speak to the doctor about both of these problems. He told my dad that he had developed Autonomic Neuropathy. This is where the nerves that control your organs do not function correctly explaining his issues.

Not being content with just two neuropathies, he ended up with Motor Neuropathy which is as described. It affects his movement. He can't lift his legs off the ground when walking, he can barely move his hands, and his leg muscles are all in a state of atrophy which means they are wasting away. His legs look like matchsticks compared to how they once were.

During COVID, he took a job as a driver for a community care centre. All was going well until he started falling over. He had no idea why this was happening until he saw an occupational health therapist and they told him that he had 'Drop Foot' on both sides, but worse on the left. This brought his job to an end as he became incapable of driving a manual vehicle. Since then, he hasn't worked.

The past two years have been the worst for my dad. He had to have a custom leg brace made to help the drop foot as the wait for an NHS brace was far too long. We had to go to Hull three times for the brace. Unfortunately, as a family, we can't afford private healthcare so he had to borrow money to get one made. He was also advised by a podiatrist to get a specific brace, a TurboMED to help him but at £1000 it was a non-starter.

Let's move on to mid-2022. Unbeknownst to him, he stood on a nail with his left big toe in our garage. The toe became septic a week later. He visited the hospital and they told him that the toe had to be removed. The procedure was done and a follow-up procedure was done a few days later to close the wound. This wound never healed. There was no follow-up, the stitches were never removed and the wound continued to be infected.

The hospital told him that because the infection had become a 'bomb site' in his foot, he was going to have to have his left leg amputated. He didn't believe this to be true so he sought a second opinion from a foot specialist. The specialist told him that the leg didn't have to come off but he would need extra surgery because the procedure site was full of shards of bone and hadn't been closed properly.

He then had to visit his diabetic specialist, who at the time, had a podiatric surgeon with her. They checked his foot and sent him directly to another hospital who admitted him immediately and the following day removed a significant part of his left foot. I could add a photo here but it may be a bit gruesome for some to see.

Since all his operations he has struggled to walk due to lack of balance. This makes him fall over maybe once a day. He uses a walking stick but he still falls. His arms and legs are getting shredded because of the falls. A few weeks ago he lost his balance in the kitchen, fell backwards into the door frame and broke two vertebrae in his back. Things are only getting worse for him.

I am trying to raise £100,000 for him to get the stem cell treatment that he needs and also to get some money for adaptations and the leg braces that will help him walk. If he gets worse rather than better, the money will be needed for an adapted vehicle or an electric wheelchair.

Please give what you can and share this fundraiser with everyone you know and as far as you can. All I want is for my dad to have some kind of life. He is only 48 and he believes that his life is over.