You may or may not be aware that my 20 month old twins, Lucy and Matthew, were recently diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy. Their story can be found on the links below. You will see that we are fundraising so that Matthew can have an operation called SDR (Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy). Due to the Cerebral Palsy and stiffness in his legs otherwise known as Spastic Diplegia, he is unable to walk or hold his own body weight.

SDR surgery is a procedure that treats muscle spasticity caused by abnormal communication among the brain, spinal cord, nerves and muscles. It corrects muscle spasticity by cutting the nerve rootlets in the spinal cord that are sending abnormal signals to the muscles. This operation can be done on the NHS but has a 6-7 year wait at present and he is only allowed to be considered for it once he reaches 3 years old. So in theory he would not receive this operation until he was 9 or 10 years old. For my wife and I, this is unacceptable as we feel a child should be running around playing with other children trying to be as normal as possible all through their school years. They learn so much during these early years and I don't want Matthew just accepting that he cannot walk and then suddenly being offered this operation when he's 10. The sooner we can do it the better as far as we are concerned. We have been told by a neurosurgeon that he is 95% likely to need this operation. Lucy on the other hand may not require the surgery, however may need intense therapy, such as physio, occupational therapy and is also non verbal so would need speech therapy. Lucy is 6 months behind Matthew in terms of motor development and so she cannot yet be assessed as to whether she also would benefit from this surgery.

The surgery costs £40'000 and a further £8'000 in physiotherapy and rehabilitation. We are crowdfunding a year in advance so that we can get Matthew this operation and offer him an improved life. 

We have raised over £12'000 already through donations from friends, businesses and many anonymous people. Matthew and Lucy's story has been put in the spotlight by Eagle Radio with an article on their website and also The Daily Mail. We have many up and coming crowdfunding plans and events. 

I am writing to you to ask if you would be willing to share our story either on the school website or other social media platform, or even something in your School Newsletter. I am sure many of your parents would love to hear our story and be willing to help out and create fundraising events in the future towards this cause.

Thank you for taking time to read our story.

Help raise £50000 to give our twins Matthew and Lucy the life changing operation they both need to be able to walk because of cerebral palsey.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6413515/Mother-20-month-old-twins-cerebral-palsy-raising-97-000-surgery.html

https://www.eagleradio.co.uk/news/local-news/2739185/help-little-feet-to-walk---farnborough-family-appeal-to-fund-cerebral-palsy-operation/