Asher is our adored and adorable 4 year old son. He also has cerebral palsy due to a massive neonatal stroke. Without surgery he will never be independent. He cannot walk or stand without support, let alone jump or hop. He can smile and laugh and paint. But he cannot swing or slide without an adult to help him. He loves books, especially about bears, and is learning to read. But he and his 5 year old sister are desperate to run around together.

We have a chance to give him a brighter future. With your help, we can get Asher on his own two feet. He needs surgery called Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy (SDR).  This operation cuts some of the nerves in his spinal cord to remove the spasticity in his legs. SDR will help him in so many ways: reduce his pain, reduce the frequency of future surgeries, improve his speech, his balance, his ability to sit, to stand, and to write and it will give him that cherished chance of walking independently. 

NHS consultants can perform this spinal cord surgery but are desperately frustrated not to have the funds to pay for it. Our preferred UK hospital is Great Ormond Street who must charge families like ours £30,000 for the procedure and 3 week hospital stay. This is not private healthcare, but charged at cost, or ‘self-funded’. Even still, it comes with NHS waiting lists, and Asher would have to wait for another 18 months. 

If we wait, Asher is almost certain to develop unhelpful patterns of movement that will contort his limbs, risking permanent deformities. So we are delighted that the world’s most experienced SDR surgeon has accepted Asher as a candidate for surgery. And he can do this as soon as we have the funds. But it’s in the USA, in St Louis, Missouri. 

To get the surgery he needs, when he needs it, we will have to go to the States. And we would like to go in the Spring of 2016.

To get the most out of this amazing opportunity to change Asher’s prognosis from wheelchair user to independent adult we will have to follow SDR with two years of intensive physiotherapy. This too is beyond the resources of the NHS.

We will have to replace his wonderful trike with one the next size up (at a cost of £1,900) and obtain other specialist physiotherapy equipment.

In order to give Asher an independent future, a chance to play freely with his sister and friends, and provide him with legs that work for him, rather than against him, will cost us £70,000.

Please help us to help Asher. We are deeply grateful for each and every contribution to our campaign to help our son.  Please click to donate, or we have teamed up with Camp Simcha who are able to collect donations and Gift Aid on our behalf. If you copy and paste the link to http://www.campsimcha.org.uk/ashersfund/ there is more information. Also from there the charges are fewer and so even more of your donation will be used to benefit Asher.

100% of money raised will go to Asher's Fund

Thank you for reading but please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any more questions. 

Kate and Andrew

kateblok@yahoo.com