Story
Meet Evelina. She is our little rockstar and we are her biggest fans.
Evelina was born in July 2018 at 40 weeks. She was stillborn. Her first heartbeat was heard at 17 minutes and 46 seconds.
She has been fighting ever since.
Evelina sustained quite a substantial brain injury and has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, epilepsy, dystonia, a visual impairment and more, including being fully tube fed via gastrostomy (a little button that goes directly into her tummy).
Evelina is an absolute bundle of potential. Her MRI showed damage to every area of her brain but we are working as hard as we possibly can to really harvest the power of brain plasticity at this young age.
Brain plasticity is the ability of the brain to re-wire and re-route tasks around the damaged part of the brain to allocate it to other parts in order to function. Weve seen this time and time again with Evelina - shes making great progress. She will now reach, hold, grasp and lift. She uses her hands together, which is amazing for future development.
Evelina is affected in her motor skills. She has a visual impairment (to which we dont know the extent yet) and delayed motor planning so the key with Evelina is patience.
Evelina is a bright little cookie! She is signing more in makaton and works so hard in daily physio sessions, hydrotherapy, vision, speech & language and communication therapy.
Evelina has 13 professionals (and counting) and lots of equipment. We are so incredibly privileged to have the NHS but some of the therapies that we do/ want to do with Evelina are not funded by them.
Monies are needed for private physiotherapy, NAPA intensive (3 week intensive neuro rehabilitation), equipment and adapted toys and brain plasticity therapy.
Your help to give Evelina the support she needs to thrive is appreciated more than we'll ever be able to tell you.
Thank you,
Evelina, Hayley and Gareth
Follow Evelinas journey on Instagram