Give Edward His Mobility Back

I'm Edward, and I live with Marfan syndrome. I live with lots of issues, mostly related to injuries I suffered as a result of Marfan syndrome, as well as the skeletal deformities that come with the condition. It also comes with a great risk of aortic dissection and stroke. I suffered my first stroke in 2011, damaging my vision center and rendering me nearly blind in one eye. October of 2013 was my second, leaving me in a wheelchair due to poor control of my right leg. In May of this year I suffered my worst stroke, damaging my left side and essentially making me completely blind in my right eye. I need compression garments over 75% of my limbs due to chronic venous insufficiency and I have kidney damage, though no failures yet.

I need custom leg braces due to the deformities caused by Marfan syndrome. Thus far we have made it with what little we get with disability (as my wife is disabled as well) but the cost of braces to let me walk again is more than we can bear. I can walk a little, mostly supervised shuffling around the house, but braces would allow me to finally go back to the woods I grew up in, being Seminole. It's a big issue to me to get back, and these would get me there, as well as allowing me to use my wheelchair a lot less. I'm facing having to get a chair I can push one handed as well, but we don't know how much that will be, so I'm just asking for the braces.

I was very active up until this final stroke, being a wheelchair archer that drew up to 100 pound bows and made my own equipment, bows,arrows, everything. But my left arm, which had previous injuries, was the worst affected and it's all but useless for archery now. I feel I could overcome even this if I could just get my feet under me again.

I just want to walk like everyone else. But I can't afford to do so on my own. Any excess money will go towards a new manual chair I can push/steer one handed. Even though I have the braces I won't be able to walk all the time. But I'll sure try.