Just4Children are raising funds for SDR surgery to change Poppy’s life for the better.
Poppy is aged 5 from Kettering in Northants. In 2018 at just nine months old an MRI revealed Poppy had suffered a stroke in utero. Poppy was immediately diagnosed with Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy and her future was uncertain. With limited to no use of her right hand and uncertainty around whether Poppy would be able to walk or talk, we took to researching all kinds of therapies that would be of benefit to her.
In 2018, we fundraised for Poppy to receive specialist Physiotherapy at a clinic in London. With great results, we thought we’d found the perfect intervention. We soon realised that this was bigger than any intervention we would come across and Poppy’s progress plateaued.
At two and a half years old, and by then, many gruelling hours of physiotherapy, Poppy proudly took her first steps. As her parents we were, of course elated and assumed, perhaps naively, that we had collectively cracked the last hurdle.
Since then, Poppy has battled orthopaedic shoes, splints day and night, serial casting and Botulinum Toxin injections to reduce her high spasticity. Unfortunately, all of which are only temporary. Splints, if they are fitted correctly, are outgrown within six weeks and the Botulinum Toxin injections are to be had yearly, and despite the almost immediate results, within weeks Poppy’s leg returns to its pre-existing self consisting of high tone and high spasticity, both of which cause Poppy pain, day and night.
Now at five years old and witnessing a huge regression in Poppy’s physical mobility, it’s time to make a decision. We are being referred to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital for Poppy to have SDR (Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy) but we need your help. SDR is a surgical procedure that aims to reduce spasticity in the lower limbs, thus improving quality of life.
We need to raise enough funds for Just4Children to provide the SDR itself and the intense rehabilitation period for Poppy post surgery. Please help if you can, however little it may seem, it’ll make a huge impact.
The Fowlers xx
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