Please help Beau get home

On April 19 this year, our 12-year-old son, Beau, was happily playing football with his classmates, with dreams of being a footballer or ‘even a football coach, mummy.’

Running for goal, Beau was tackled from behind, with a blow to his right ankle. He hobbled off the pitch, and we didn’t think much about it, these things happen right?

Five months later  Beau is bedridden, unable to walk a single step, the slightest touch is excruciating and he is in constant agony, 24/7. 

Although it’s impossible to fully comprehend his pain, it is said to feel like his foot is ‘burning alive from the inside’.

How could this happen? Beau was diagnosed with the neural disease, CRPS - Complex Regional Pain Syndrome - ‘the world’s most painful disease’ or the ‘suicide disease’ as it is commonly referred to by Google. 

We were told that the best we could do would be to try to numb some of his pain. Beau had a lumbar plexus block, over a hundred hours of painful physical therapy, and countless drugs from ketamine to morphine - with no relief. 

The next step, we were advised, was to put electrodes into Beau’s spine to pump electrical signals to his brain, as ‘it might help a bit’. We were horrified; the side effects range from jolting shocks, further nerve damage, and hematoma, to infection or paralysis. 

Over the last few months, we have been searching the globe for experts or treatment centres for this debilitating condition. It was then we found a CRPS specialist treatment centre in the US.

We have spoken to the centre, researched them, and spoken with parents from all over the world whose children have undergone this unique CPRS treatment to make a full recovery in 4-6 months. 

We are at the point where we feel this is the only available option for Beau to make a full recovery. Suddenly we have hope again. Beau could walk again? Be able to go to school? See his friends? This is all we wish for for our son. 

My husband, Andy is going to work overseas to save for Beau’s treatment. I need to take Beau and his little brother to America and, God willing, stay there until Beau can walk onto the plane and come home to his life once more

The parents of the other children with this disease begged us, please, please don’t wait to get your son help. CRPS gets worse and it spreads. I see this for myself, Beau is getting worse daily. So we hope to act as soon as possible.

This process has been humbling for us, we have exhausted all possibilities of Beau getting well at home. We wish we didn’t have to ask for the kindness and generosity of people in these tough times, but it is time to reach out, pray, and ask for help for Beau.

We have to do all we can in the hope that Beau will regain his life one step at a time. We know now we cannot do this alone.

Yours sincerely Iris & Andy