Story
Our lovely loud and cheerful daughter Harper was born 3 weeks early via an emergency c-section due to heart rate issues in labour. Once delivered Harper had to be resuscitated for 7 minutes. Luckily she came back to us, but then less than an hour later in the recovery room she stopped breathing again and needed further assistance and was rushed up to intensive care.
Although her stay there was only one week long compared to others staying for weeks or months, the assistance needed remains long term.
At nine months old we realised Harper was not reaching many of her milestones at all. The health visitor referred us to our local hospital, where she had many appointments and observations before they reached the diagnosis of cerebral palsy. Spastic Diplegic Cerebral Palsy in full.
Harper is very lucky that over time with a lot of determination and positivity she can walk with a Kaye walker. However, her battle does not stop there. In February she is going to Bristol Hospital to have life changing SDR surgery, with the hope that it may improve her mobility. This SDR operation can not improve Harper's mobility on its own. She will need intense physiotherapy long term. We would also love to provide her with the equipment she needs at home to help with her exercises to get the most from such a major operation.
We are very lucky in the respect that the NHS is funding the SDR operation, but the NHS physiotherapy is sadly not enough to reach the full potential of Harper's mobility. This sadly will require a lot of time and money and as much as we would like to say we can handle it on our own, we can not. We need as much help and support as we can get.
Harper is so loving and always smiling as well as very stubborn and is very hopeful that the doctors may be able to help her 'cheeky legs'. Everyone that meets Harper falls in love with her and her determination.
Thank you
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