Help Harry Walk Fund

Harry is a two and half year old lovable, cheeky little lad, he was born 2 weeks premature, the night before his birth he was in distress in the womb, a cesarean section was advised for his birth unfortunately doctors decided against the decision and let nature take its course, harry was born the next morning at 9.20am naturally, weighing 6lb 2oz.

Everything seemed fine with harry until the age of 6 months when mum Shane  had thought that Harry’s legs were extremely stiff and ankle joints tight, he never bounced up and down like his sisters before him had when they were babies, his dad Chris and other family members thought Shane was being an over protective mum and brushed off any comments that anything was wrong with harry and said  too stop worrying. Shane decided to take harry to the health visitor and get him routinely weighed and mention her concerns to her, the health visitor agreed with Shane an suggested taking harry too the GP who then in turn referred harry to a pediatrician at the local hospital, she suggested harry have a MRI brain scan.

At 18 months of age Harry was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy-Diplegia , the main symptom is the spasticity and tightness in Harry’s leg muscles  he cannot put his feet flat on the ground  therefore cannot stand up or walk, he has a Kaye Walker frame which he can manage to use for short periods of time  before getting extremely tired and upset from the aching muscles in his legs, at home harry mainly crawls to move about the home.

Harry gets very frustrated and upset that he cannot stand or walk like his brother an sisters and children he’s in regular contact with, this takes its toll on him and is hard for his parents to see him try but not succeed in being able to do what other little children find so easy to do.

After researching all treatments and therapies to Help HarryWalk we have found an operation offered in St Louis Missouri USA.. This is not available on the NHS here in the U.K

The aim is to raise our target of £60,000 to send Harry for the operation.  Dr Park has listed the following improvements if Harry had the surgery:

His spasticity will be permanently reduced.

His sitting postures will be normal.

His standing postures will improve.

His transitions between postures will be easier and faster.

His balance and level of comfort will both improve.

His walking will improve significantly-we feel that he will have a chance to walk independently without an assistive device in all environments.

His speech and toilet training and cognitive functions will all improve without the distraction of spasticity.

For all the reasons mentioned above, we feel that Harry is an excellent candidate for the rhizotomy surgery and that permanent reduction in abnormal muscle tone will help him significantly.

Dr Park and his team strongly recommend that he has the Rhizotomy Surgery.