Mum pleads for help to allow her little girl to walk

A young mother has made an emotional appeal to the health minster to intervene to help her little girl walk.

Leslie Ann McGeough, 25, is spearheading a fundraising campaign to raise €100,000 for a potentially life-changing operation in the US for her five-year-old daughter, Abbey, who must use a wheelchair.

“I am basically heartbroken looking at my little girl this way when I know she has so much potential,” Leslie Ann said.

“I am a single mother. Abigail’s father has no part in her life and has left the country. I struggle with finances as it is, with a car to run, food and clothes to buy. And I cannot afford to pay for intensive physiotherapy privately.

“I am at my wits’ end. I do as much physio at home with Abigail myself but I am not a professional and Abigail needs professional help.”

In her direct appeal to James Reilly, she said: “I am asking you personally to please, please, help me.”

Abbey was born on Nov 12, 2007, with hydrocephalus — water on the brain — and underwent two operations as a baby.

She was with COPE Foundation before transferring to Enable Ireland where she was diagnosed in 2009 with epilepsy and spastic diplegia cerebral palsy — severe muscle stiffness.

As she developed, she began to suffer from bad pain and cramps in her hips and legs. Enable Ireland investigated the symptoms and an X-ray showed both Abigail’s hips were over 60% dislocated.

She underwent surgery again and plates and screws were inserted to keep her hips in place.

Leslie Ann said doctors told her, with the correct after-care and intense physiotherapy, Abbey would be able walk.

But, because of health cutbacks, Abigail’s physio- therapy has been sporadic.

And while she used to be able to walk with the aid of a walking frame, she is now confined to a wheelchair.

“It’s heartbreaking. She looks at her friends and she just asks ‘why can’t I do that?’ She has stopped going to birthday parties and activities because it upsets her to see the kids playing on the monkey bars or in the playpen.”

Leslie Ann hopes that if she can get the right physiotherapy for Abbey, she will regain her strength and be considered the right candidate for a life-changing procedure in America called Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy.

The operation could cost up to €60,000, with pre and post-op physio costing up to €30,000.

A child in Wicklow who had the operation in June was walking by October.

Abbey, who attends pre-school, is due to start primary school in Rathpeacon in September.

Supported by her family, Leslie Ann has set up a fundraising campaign, ‘Abbey’s wish to walk’.

A coffee morning will take place at Glenfields crèche, Ballyvolane, Cork, on Friday next.