Leo’s Lifesaving Fund

Hi, my name is Joanna Fourtinakis and I’m raising money for a young boy named Leonidas (Leo) Tsoukalas.

 Leo is an 9 year old from Athens, Greece that woke up one day at age 4 and suddenly couldn’t move. He was diagnosed with a very rare disease called Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM). AFM is an illness with life threatening long term impacts. 

 Leonidas was admitted into the Kennedy Krieger Institute* in Baltimore for inpatient care November 2019 and has been visiting multiple times a week ever since for essential outpatient care. He needs a ventilator and gastronomy just to survive each day. AFM has made Leo unable to move at all and only able to see and speak.

 But Leo has great spirit, potential and intellect, for example he is a winning chess player and has a very active mind. As many know at age 21 the physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a neurological disease much like AFM. As a result Dr. Hawking had little movement and was unable to speak without the aid of a computer. Yet Dr. Hawking became one of the most celebrated theoretical physicists of all time while almost totally disabled.

 Leo and his family need your help with vast expenses for his treatments and life support. Some specific items include:   

  •    Bills for Leo’s Sept 2023 spinal surgery - which was a $200,000 procedure  

   •    Future procedures for spinal implant adjustments, specialized wheelchair adjustments and ventilator maintenance 

     •    Dedicated daily nursing care, physical and occupational therapy, and essential medical supplies   

  •    Getting an eye/voice controlled computer to allow him access to the world of knowledge  

   •    Transportation operating expenses for the wheelchair van needed for continuing outpatient visits. 

Please help as you can. 

*Kennedy Krieger Institute is the world's premier institution dedicated to improving the lives of children with care and research focused on pediatric disorders of the brain, spinal cord and musculoskeletal system. AFM acute flaccid myelitis https://www.cdc.gov/acute-flaccid-myelitis/index.html (https://www.cdc.gov/acute-flaccid-myelitis/index.html)