Please help Charlotte to be able to walk again.

Charlotte has not had it easy in her short years, born 10 weeks prematurely with a heart condition she was subsequently diagnosed with Quadriplegic cerebral Palsy when she was just 18 months old. With severe spasticity in four limbs she was unable to walk, struggled to hold a pen and had problems with speech. We did everything we could and with the help of the local community epically fundraised £80000 to get Charlotte to America at the age of 4 for surgery to remove the spasticity to help her start to learn to walk.

Roll on a year and Charlotte was progressing amazingly and it even looked like her hips which had not developed properly were finally starting to head in the right direction. Charlotte was walking with a walker and independence was in the future. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and marvelled at Charlotte’s perseverance and determination to get up and go.

Another year passed and although Charlotte continued to work immensely hard it was getting hard and harder for her to walk; January’s hip x-ray revealed our worse fears and Charlotte needed further surgery. In April she underwent bilateral osteotomies to reposition both her femurs. After 5 hours of surgery she returned to the ward in cast from her torso to her ankles. She stayed in the cast for 5 long week’s through the hottest May we have known before the cast was removed at the beginning of June. It was immediately evident that the hips were in a much better position and Charlottes sitting was immediately more stable however the down side of being in the cast for so long was that 2 years of muscle strength and belief was lost.

We are now 3 months down the line and with the help private physiotherapy, strength training and a volunteer sports therapist student working alongside her NHS physio she has gained her muscle strength back remarkably quickly. However her new hips means she needs to learn the stand and walk all other again in effectively a new body. Even with 2 physio's it is impossible to give her the physical support to stand along with continuing to maintain her stepping action. Charlotte needs help to get moving as quickly and as safely as possible.

We need to fundraise £8250 to purchase a specialist Litegait Trainer, harness and Treadmill to support Charlotte in being able to walk again. The equipment will not only support Charlotte in the short term but it will enable her to continue to gain and maintain walking as she gets older and even into adulthood.

In order to raise this funds needed, Charlotte’s Dad, James, along with 10 others are going to attempt The Welsh 3000 challenge.

The epic task is to climb every peak in Wales over 3000ft in 24 hours. That’s 15 mountains, 30 miles and over 4000m of climbing! This is seriously tough and a big step up from the UK Three Peaks. Along with the gruelling challenge of climbing and potentially getting lost through the night, the group also have some dangerously exposed technical sections such as Tryfan and Crib Goch (youtube them - they’re terrifying and several people have died!). These guys are attempting it with minimal training to not only help raise the funds to get Charlotte what she needs but also to show her that anything is possible just like her Dads epic Everest Challenge did nearly 3 years ago.

Safety throughout this is paramount, they will be attempting it on the 16th September but if the weather is unfavourable (mainly high winds) the challenge will be postponed for another date.