On Thursday 4th Oct I jumped out of a small plane at 12,000 ft to try and raise £10,000 for a wonderful, funny, brave, happy, 7 year old boy called JONNY MABERLEY - one of my daughter Phoebe's best friends.

Jonny was born with spastic Cerebral Palsy and has spent most of his short life strapped into a wheelchair. Not for long though - with your support.

TAKE 10 Minutes, DONATE £10, TELL 10 Friends.

 If seated comfortably there's a short 'Jenny Jumped for Jonny' film (PG) you could watch, made possible by the generous sponsorship of Twickenham Film Studios who paid for the filming as well as the cost of the jump itself.  

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I-5iaE1Dt0&feature=plcp

Jonny had a life-changing operation called Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy (SDR for short) at St Louis Children's Hospital in Missouri, America on Tuesday 2nd October. Since then he's embarked on a daily program of intensive post operative physiotherapy and his progress has been far better then anyone dared hope ... his doctors, physios, parents and most of all himself! 

Jonny has already taken his first 10 Steps using a special 'reverse Kaye walker' for support. (n.b. He wasn't able to do this before his SDR op.) If you could donate 10 Pounds and forward the link to this page to 10 Friends you can help Jonny take 10's of thousands more!

Every penny you donate will help to raise the final £10,000 we need to fund the 12 months of intensive post operative physiotherapy that Jonny needs to continue when he returns to the UK at the end of October. (Like the SDR operation itself, this vital physio would not be available to Jonny on the NHS.)  

Your support can help make a big difference to Jonny - getting him mobile and out of his wheelchair on a regular basis. 

Sadly the UK is at least 20 years behind the US in terms of the expertise, funding and commitment to the SDR procedure pioneered so successfully by Dr T S Parks, the world reknowned neuro-surgeon in chief at St Louis Children's Hospital in America. Despite the years of unequivocal US evidence in support of the procedure's clinical efficacy and safety SDR is not available on the NHS. It should be. The NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) guidelines need to be changed - and I'm now working with a group called SUPPORT4SDR ( www.support4sdr.org ) to campaign for this to happen. 

I've had an incredible time this year leading the Jonny's Journey fund raising campaign (www.jonnysjourney2012.com) that has allowed Jonny and his parents, Katie & Gareth, to get to St Louis Hospital, America and have the life changing SDR op that they've dreamed of for so long. Whilst I organised lots of fundraising events with the wonderful JJ team and helped promote all the magnificent efforts of the many people and organisations that have helped Jonny on his life changing journey so far - this is the first personal fundraiser that I've done myself.  

To live life to the full they say you should do something new everyday, and if it scares you then all the better. My tandem skydive certainly ticks the boxes here - raw, primal fear. There was a point where if I could have stopped the plane and got off I probably would have. I lived my whole life in one day. For Jonny, learning to walk after his SDR op will be a new, demanding and exhausting daily experience - maybe even a little frightening on some days. He'll be finding muscles he never knew existed - literally.

But Jonny's on a journey. A heroic one. We all are. To quote Helen Keller, the first deafblind person to earn a batchelor of arts degree and a passionate advocate for the disabled ; "Life is a daring adventure, or it's nothing." 

Jonny - this one's for you.  

 THANK YOU from Jenny & Jonny   xx

(To see a personal video thank you from Jonny see gallery below).

 

 

 

 

 

(Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.)