Super Sophie

In many ways our Sophie is a typical, cute, 4 year old. Like most premature babies though, she’s had a few challenges. A nasty infection caused her to be born 14 weeks early, weighing only 815 g. A few weeks into her four month stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit she became unresponsive and we were told she would probably not survive. The doctors and nurses never gave up though and managed to pull her through.

Sophie now has cerebral palsy and the spasticity (tenseness) in her legs prevents her from standing or walking on her own, and is causing her hips to develop abnormally.

An operation called selective dorsal rhizotomy, or SDR, can permanently relieve some of the spasticity in the legs of kids with cerebral palsy. This operation is widely available overseas, but nobody in New Zealand offers it yet. Sophie has been accepted for SDR at St Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri, USA. If she has SDR, and completes the year of intensive physiotherapy, it is likely she will gain more use of her legs, and that her hips will develop more normally.

The team at St Louis also believe Sophie will be able to walk unaided on all terrains. You can perhaps imagine how magical this would be for us, after having watched helplessly as Sophie's life appeared to be slipping away in those first few weeks.

The money raised will cover most of the cost of surgery at St Louis, travel and accommodation.

For a peek into some of the challenges Sophie faced in her first year, feel free to watch the video we made to celebrate her first birthday, on the "Updates" tab above.

For more information about the SDR surgery at St Louis see:

http://www.stlouischildrens.org/our-services/center-cerebral-palsy-spasticity/about-selective-dorsal-rhizotomy-sdr