Hey everyone, I'm Ivy. The first thing I want to say is thank you! I appreciate you coming onto my page and reading my story.

To start off, I was brought into this beautiful world on Easter Day and I am 3 years old from Leytonstone in London. I love eating popcorn, playing with animals, going for walks in the muddy forest and playing with water. Mum and Dad say that I am very smart, funny and very loving.

Sadly, I had a stroke while I was in my mummys womb and ever since then the right side of my brain has struggled to communicate with the left side of my body. The reality is that the stroke has given me and my parents a problem we are trying our best to work through. That problem is called cerebral palsy.

Due to my illness the muscles in the left side of my body contract without me being able to control them. You might have already heard of this as spasticity.

The spasticity and other related issues meant that I was unable to crawl when I was very little and as it affects every muscle on one side.

I still cannot talk as the muscles in my face are affected. My balance isnt very good and neither is my stability. I need regular physio to help with my balance and to straighten my limbs. The more physio I do now, the more likely it is I will be able to avoid surgery in later life. Regular occupational therapy is also a must for me as I dont have much control over my left arm and hands and I am mostly keeping my hand in a fist which is so tiring and gives me painful cramps.

However, Mummy and daddy are not giving up. They are fundraising for Just4Children so I can attend weekly conductive education and weekly physio blocks of occupational and speech therapy. They are also fundraising to get some equipment to help me improve at home and see regularly an osteopath and an orthopaedic doctor for Botox injections and splints.

The biggest positive benefit to my quality of life will be having constraint induced movement therapy twice a year. This is a method of treatment for cerebral palsy developed by researchers at the university of Alabama and is known to help kids like me. Its normally done in a block of 5 hours per day over 4 full weeks and it is very expensive. It will mean that my good side is bandaged in a controlled environment while I carry out activities that will strengthen my weaker side.

We are very lucky to have NHS but since the Covid pandemic has started all my NHS therapies have stopped and I havent had any access to therapy for a full year now. Unfortunately, it all had to be done privately as most of these beneficial therapies are not covered by NHS.

I cant thank you enough for reading my story and in doing so, you are already a part of my journey. I appreciate the time you have spent on me so far and I am grateful for any donations you can make. You can also help by sharing this page.

xxx

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