Help Grayson: Turn Blindness Into Light ⭐

Edit to add: I've added Grayson's direct bank details if you'd prefer to transfer directly. I can then add your donation to GoFundMe manually. I've had quite a few messages with people unable to successfully donate through GoFundMe. Thank you so much!!

ACC Name: Grayson Dog Fundraising

BSB: 306 821

ACC: 422 69 45

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Hi Everyone,

My sister (Grayson's mum) has been soo apprehensive about starting a GoFundMe. She's the most selfless person that I know. She never asks others for help, but she's the first one to offer her help.

I've decided to take over and create this GoFundMe as honestly there's noone who deserves it more.

Grayson absolutely truly deserves this chance so here I am, asking for your help.

We all want nothing more than to give Grayson a better quality of life.

In a nutshell we are fundraising for an assistant/guide dog to help Grayson, keep him safe, bringing him more hope and quality to his life; something EVERY child deserves.

We cannot thank you enough in advance for any donation.

Any donation, no matter how small WILL help play a part in Graysons quality of life.

Below is more information from Grayson's biggest fan, support & the voice of Grayson, his mum, my sister, Leah:

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Hi everyone, firstly thank you in advance for reading our story and secondly I'm sorry that it's so long but it's hard to cut Grayson's journey down into a few words, so here we go....

Our warrior Grayson lives a hard life with many challenges. He is a wonderful almost 4 year old boy, who has already been through so much in his little life.

Grayson has had operations, needing to go under general anaesthesia 4 times already in his short life, 1 of which he stopped breathing needing oxygen and emergency care (hands down the scariest moments of my whole life). Grayson is at a higher risk of these types of complications due to his complex needs.

Unfortunately Grayson is also currently awaiting huge hip surgery which will bring a couple of months of casting and a hell of a lot of pain and discomfort (currently having x-rays every few months before they "pull the trigger" on this).

Grayson suffers with Cerebral Palsy and blindness. He is a very complex special little man.

He has:

*Severe vision impairment, making him "Legally blind".

*Periventricular leukomalacia (PVL- a type of brain damage)

*Global Development Delay

*Hypotonia (low muscle tone)

*Hypertonia (muscle overactivity)

*Dystonia (causes exteme muscle pains- involuntary muscle activity)

*Neurogenic bowel dysfunction (causing daily and continued bowel pain and discomfort)

*Non verbal (unable to speak)

*Microcephaly (smaller brain)

*Immune compromised (spends a lot of time in and out of hospital when he's poorly which is more often than the average. It also takes him so much longer to recover. A simple runny nose to someone else ends up with a hospital stay for Grayson).

*High risk of seizures (shown on brain MRI)

Grayson attends CONSTANT therapy, specialist and hospital appointments at Perth Children's Hospital numerous times every single week.

Despite all of the above, he is the most gentle, happy, loving little boy you'll ever meet. He is soo content and his smile is just infectious.

We are just so obsessed with him.

Whilst all of this therapy that we've been doing for over 3 years, from weekly sessions to constant intensive therapy weeks, there's only so much you can do.

In order to maximise the quality of Grayson's life, we decided to look into an Assistant Dog to help Grayson outside of therapy.

We have met with WAAT Dogs (Western Australia Assistant Therapy Dogs) who believe Grayson would be the perfect candidate.

The dog will help Grayson in more ways than one:

*Safety due to his severe vision impairment:

Simple things to us but deterring Grayson from reaching for the flame on the hob to deterring Grayson away from splashing in a toilet bowl. To outside the house like navigating around simple pot holes that he cannot see, or stopping at a kerb (Grayson is unable to walk down kerbs/ up or down steps so the dog will be trained to assist Grayson with these tasks safely).

Grayson split his head open in March 2023, needing an emergency ambulance and glue to his forehead at hospital due to his vision impairment. He smacked his head on a coffee table that he didn't see, leaving a huge scar across his head and of course a lot of pain and distress.

Our hope would definitely be for the dog to help guide him away from these unknown safety hazards, whether it's a coffee table in an unknown location or a shoe left in the middle of the floor.

Then not to mention all of the other amazing positives of a guide/assistant dog including but not limited to gaining:

*Independence

*Companionship/emotional support

*Confidence

Honestly the list of positives just goes on and on. We want nothing more than to give Grayson this chance at a better life.

Grayson absolutely LOVES dogs and we are super excited and determined to make this happen for him. He flaps his arms with excitement and tries to kiss them whenever a dog comes close enough. He is such a deserving little boy .

Unfortunately the dog/training etc come with a huge price tag not covered by NDIS ($38,000 AUD).

I have already opened up a new and separate bank account purely for his dog funds and we have started saving hard. We definitely don't intend on raising anywhere near the target amount but absolutely anything would be a help.

Unfortunately the timing isn't great as we've just had to pay a significant amount of money for a disabled friendly vehicle for Grayson's needs just a couple of weeks ago.

We will be sure to supply constant updates on this process too. You can also follow Graysons journey from the start on his Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/GStarLewis2019?mibextid=ZbWKwL

Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts in advance for your support for our little G-star on his journey⭐