Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

On Sunday 27 July I will be taking to the sky, to jump from 12,000 feet to raise money for Scarlett's SDR operation and ongoing rehabilitation therapy in America and back her in the uk. 

Here is where just a few minutes of your time can change this little girl's life forever.  So please support me in doing this crazy challenge and help to turn Scarlett's Wish2Walk from a dream into a reality.

Scarlett is 9 years old and she has got Cerebral Palsy. She has been accepted to have a life changing operation called Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy at St. Louis Children's Hospital in America.  

 Here is Scarlett's story...

When I was born I had a really tough time. I entered the big wide world 8 weeks early weighing 4lb 7oz and I had to be resuscitated as I wasn't breathing on my own. As a result of this, my brain and my other internal organs were starved of oxygen and I sustained a bleed on my brain. I was rushed to special care where I was wired up to life support and lots of other machines. The next day, the doctor came to see me to check me over and listened to my heart, he heard a murmur and ordered for me to have an heart scan. The doctor then told my Mummy and Daddy that I had a major heart defect called Transposition of the Great Arteries (TGA for short) and I urgently needed an operation. At just 2 weeks old, now weighing 5lb and the smallest baby the surgeon said he had performed this operation on, I had life-saving open-heart surgery to switch my arteries to the correct position. Although my heart operation was a success, the brain damage that I had sustained at birth had resulted in me being diagnosed with PVL and this is the most common cause of Cerebral Palsy. 

Having this condition means that the muscles in my legs are very tight and often quite painful and therefore I am unable to run around in the garden with my two younger sisters. I am also unable to stand unaided and I need assistance to move in and out of positions. I struggle on a daily basis with simple tasks that we all take for granted like dressing and undressing, using the bathroom. I have trouble in sitting positions, like sitting crossed legged or long sitting, without experiencing pain or losing my balance. I also wake up on a nightly basis with painful leg cramps and spasms. 

 I dream that one day I will not have to use my walking frame or wheelchair anymore and that I will be able to play in the playground with all my school friends and run around just like them. Sometimes it makes me so sad to sit watching them because it really is hard work when you have this condition and I get very worn out trying to keep up with them.

 SDR is not available on the NHS so for me to be able to have this operation, myself and my family now have the very daunting task of raising £65,000 to cover the cost of the operation and all the intensive physiotherapy that I will need afterwards, so please can you help me raise this amount so that Mummy and Daddy can take me to America to change my life forever.

The surgeon, Dr Parks, has said that if I have the operation then I will ‘walk independently in all environments with improved balance and endurance, have reduced spasticity, have better sitting and standing posture, my standing balance and level of comfort will improve'. 

 Dr Parks administers the complex operation that destroys the 'bad' nerves leaving the good ones. This operation results in correct messages being sent to the legs and this helps to loosen the tight muscles to allow me to walk. The cutting of the nerves in the spinal cord is a complex job requiring the most skilled surgeons and we only have one chance to get it right. For this reason this 'specialist' hospital in the USA is the most likely place in the world to make a life changing difference to my life.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story and if you can help me in any way possible for me to achieve my dream to walk independently, myself and my family would be greatly appreciative. 

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