Please help Sophie get her corrective surgery!

Hi my name is Hannah and I am Sophie's mum.

Just a bit of background, Sophie was at school on 20th October running around on the grass like any child. She had a very minor slip. We didn't think much of it at first but a family friend took her up to A&E where they x-rayed her leg and found a cyst taking up 40% of a cross section of her tibia which had caused a significant weakness in her leg causing it to fracture. The first doctor we saw advised that she would more than likely require a referral to Southampton General to have the cyst removed and have a bone graft to backfill and strengthen her bone to prevent any further breaks.

Since then, St Mary's have done nothing to plan anything for her. Her fracture (as far as we know) still isn't healed. She wasn't supplied with a wheelchair as "they didn't have any children's ones", so I asked where I needed to go to get hold of one... I was told, "I don't know, google it!". Since then we have been hiring one at a cost of £22 per week from the red cross. I kept asking for answers for her to how the cyst would be dealt with and what was the plan going forward. We were never given one. We were just told "everything is fine" with no explanation for what that meant. We eventually put a complaint in through PALS, and had a further response from the Dr she was seeing at the fracture clinic. He then changed his story after 13 weeks and said that the fracture was NOT caused by the cyst and this isn't his area of expertise. He also said "I understand it may be difficult to understand in layman's terms" which disgusted us.

We asked for her to be referred to Southampton as I felt they weren't giving her the treatment she deserves. They eventually agreed to this and discharged her from their care. Fast forward a few days and we get a letter through from Southampton General on 6th January with Sophie's initial appointment with them in January 2025!!! We thought this must be a typo so I called them and they confirmed that Sophie had been referred as a NEW ROUTINE OUTPATIENT and so that is when she would be seen unless we got an expedite request from St Mary's. As you can imagine, they refused to give us one saying there was no reason for her to be seen any sooner.

We then paid to take her over to the Spire Hospital in Southampton for a private consultation and second opinion. The Dr we saw there was brilliant with her and advised of the risks of leaving the leg to "heal on it's own" as had been suggested, those risks being high potential of refracture or a worse breakage, as well as her bone bending as it grows causing a deformity. We have been advised of the corrective surgery (the same as we were initially told by the UTC doctor at St Mary's 4 months ago!) but with it being a private hospital, we just can't afford her surgery. So we are now stuck in limbo and don't know what else to do.

I have attached some of her MRI and x-ray images so you can see what we are dealing with. If anyone can help us get our little girl the help she deserves to be able to live a normal childhood, we would be eternally grateful.

Big loves! From the Woodfords x