Fund specialist spinal neurosurgery

Hello, my name is Michaela. I am in my 20s and like to read, bake, and prior to a decline in health did enjoy exploring new places. I am a health professional for the NHS. I currently work across adult acute wards and outpatient head and neck cancer clinics, as a Speech and Language Therapist.

As those closest to me know, I had a childhood brain injury. This brain injury led to hemiplegia down one side of the body. I also have spasticity from this brain injury. Spasticity is caused as the part of my brain responsible for sending signals to my sensory nerves, telling my body when to relax and contract, is damaged. This means parts of my body contract constantly - this is spasticity. Unfortunately, this causes daily pain, and atrophy on my impacted side. My non impacted side also has to compensate heavily.

Treatment to manage symptoms of this over the years has included: multiple surgeries, numerous rounds of botulinum injections, serial casting, AFOs, medication, occupational therapy and physiotherapy.

As I age, my body's ability to manage this additional strain is lessening. This has led to pain and injury not just to my impacted side, but now also my non impacted side. My world has become very small over the past year due to pain and injury.

If nothing changes, this will likely lead to further pain, injury, and reduced mobility, independence and quality of life.

This is where the Go Fund Me comes in. There is a specialist spinal neurosurgery available. This involves testing the nerve rootlets in the spine, and cutting the ones that are misfiring. This surgery could be life changing. It would mean a significant reduction in daily pain, increased mobility, and hopefully prevent further injury.

This surgery has been readily available in the US and Europe for 30+ years, with positive outcomes for children and adults with this type of brain injury.

This procedure was commissioned by NHS England in 2020, which is amazing. Unfortunately, despite the research suggesting comparable outcomes across a varied population, the NHS is only currently funding the procedure for a small population. This means it is not currently available on the nhs for me.

The procedure is available privately, in the UK, US and Europe. I have had approval for this surgery from the chief of neurosurgery at one of the national centres of excellence for this procedure. Unfortunately, due to the specialist nature of the procedure, it is costly (approx $50, 000). This includes the surgery, and 3 weeks intensive rehabilitation. Following this will be months to years of ongoing rehabilitation. Due to the cost of living crisis in the UK, this figure is unattainable for me (and so many others). Even with savings and credit card limits, I would still be over 10k short of this total. Hence the funding target on the Go Fund Me.

If you are able to donate, I really appreciate it, more than I could put into words. But I understand things are a struggle for a lot of people currently, so if not, that's okay and I hope you've enjoyed my story. Raising awareness to hopefully ensure that this procedure is more readily available to more people in the future, is also so important. And everyone can support with that :) please SHARE SHARE SHARE

Over coming months I will be completing fundraisers etc to raise funds for this medical procedure also. Keep an eye out for those! If anyone would like to help fundraise or donate anything for a give away, that would also be amazing.

Thank you for your time!

Michaela