One Dollar Warriors fight for Megan

Megan was born eight weeks prematurely and at 18 months old she was diagnosed with spastic diplegia cerebral palsy. It mostly affects her legs, and the spasticity (increased muscle tone) is causing the muscles in her legs to grow increasingly stiff and tight.

As Megan's legs stiffen and bend, her bones begin to deform, and walking becomes impossible. She used to be able to walk with poles but as she hit her teens and began to grow, the tightness has become worse and worse and now she must use a wheelchair.

Megan has been approved for selective dorsal rhizotomy surgery in St Louis, Missouri, in which surgeons will find the nerves sending the defective messages to her muscles and turn them off, followed by another operation to stretch her tendons.

That, in turn, will be followed by four weeks of intensive rehabilitation in the US learning to walk, and two years of rehabilitation physiotherapy in New Zealand.

The operation will remove the spasticity from her muscles and allow her to walk without needing a wheelchair or walking frame.

Other children in New Zealand have gone to the US for the operation and their stories have given the family hope that Megan too can one day walk unaided.

It is a daunting prospect, with the added worry of trying to raise the money needed. However, they are doing everything they can to make sure they reach the total no matter how impossible it seems.

But every donation helps the family inch closer to their goal of helping Megan to walk.

Megan needs $120,000 to get to St Louis, Missouri to receive the operation she needs to walk again. We want to help her with every dollar we can.