Girls have ‘overcome all odds’ in bids to walk

Two girls with cerebral palsy who have each undergone surgery in their bid to walk without aids have jointly won a People of the Year award for their bravery.

“Kayley was six and still not able to stand or walk,” said her mother, Jacky Dunne. “She couldn’t use a walking frame and was in a wheelchair the whole time.”

Now she is walking on her own. “It’s like [my legs] are loose and when I walk now I walk on my own just the way other people do,” said Kayley, 8, from Navan, Co Meath.

Along with six-year-old Casey Fitzgerald, Kayley underwent surgery in a private clinic.

Both girls underwent a procedure called selective dorsal rhizotomy where the surgeon severed the spinal nerves causing the spasticity.

Kayley was one of the first Irish children to have the operation when she went to St Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri two years ago. Her family raised €50,000 to pay for the treatment.

Casey, who is from just outside Kells, had her operation in January at the Frenchay hospital in Bristol: Her family raised a similar figure.

Following the surgery, the girls then faced two years of equally important intensive physiotherapy.

The girls and their families have become friends and are now raising funds for the €800-a-month bill for the physiotherapy.

The girls have won the Meath Rehab Bravery Award for 2012, and are looking forward to wearing new dresses for the Sept 21 ceremony.

“I am really happy. My name will be on it,” said Casey who has been forced to slow down after she fell over the vacuum cleaner and broke a bone in her foot.

“It has put her recovery back but we will get past it,” said her mother, Tracey.

Casey and Kayley were nominated by hundreds of people for the award.

A spokesperson for the Rehab Meath People of the Year awards said: “They are two very special girls who have overcome all the odds to walk again after having painful operations for a form of cerebral palsy.”

Jacky said: “We don’t know who nominated them but to us it means that people think about them and how hard they have worked to get here.”