Support Joey's Medical trip to Toronto Hospital

Hi! I wanted to reach out to everyone out there to let you know that I am fundraising to raise money to help send my friend’s son Joey Johnson Sheikh to Sick Kid’s Hospital in Toronto for medical tests/ consultations in August 2023.

At present Joey has been diagnosed with the painful and debilitating Juvenile Parkinson’s Disease. He is under the care of Dr. Hasal, a Pediatric Neurologist. Dr. Hasal has spent the last 9 years sending Joey for neurological and genetic testing. There is no additional testing we can get in Saskatchewan.

Joey is now 14 years old and is a Grade 8 student at St. George School in Saskatoon. When Joey was 5 years old his health started to deteriorate, and he lost most of his fine motor skills. Joey presently attends weekly occupational therapy and speech therapy as well as bi-weekly blood work and monthly physiotherapy and countless doctors’ appointments. Joey also participates in Special Olympics Basketball and swimming lessons and has been involved in a specialized Lego club for fine motor skills. He is a huge sports fan and WWE, and basketball are his favourite sports. The main fear for Joey’s future is that he will lose his entire mobility and speech.

Juvenile Parkinson’s is a very rare and unusual disease. It is believed that Joey and a young lady from Regina are the only 2 diagnosed cases in Saskatchewan.

The purpose of the appointments with the specialists at Sick Kids Hospital is to obtain more specialized testing and treatment for Joey. Hopefully, the doctors will be able to help procure a longer, healthier, and more productive future for Joey. Although Joey’s younger brother, Tarik, has not started showing symptoms of the illness we recently learned that he carries the ‘Park’ gene as well and by testing Joey we hope that Tarik will not have the struggles that Joey faces each and every day.

Would you please consider contributing to our fundraiser? Your help would be appreciated so much.

If you have any family, friends or neighbours that might want to contribute to this cause please pass this information along.

Please keep Joey in your thoughts and prayers. No child should live in fear that one day they will likely be in a wheelchair, lose their ability to speak and to even swallow food or worse.

Sincerely Yours,

Linda Souter