6 weeks before we expected him, our little lion Leo was born on the 27th September 2010, weighing 5lb 15oz. He spent the next 12 days in hospital, but he made good progress and we brought him home happy that there seemed to be no long term effects of his early arrival.
Leo grew quickly and whilst he was a little slower than some of his friends at moving around sitting up, he developed a love of Mickey Mouse, music and watching his dad play football and we were confident that he just needed a little more time before he was up on his feet and running around with all of his friends.
We noticed that Leo has a slight turn in his eye and just after his first birthday took him to the GP who arranged an appointment at the eye clinic where he was given some glasses to help.
Following the appointment the GP suggested that we take Leo for some further assessments in respect of his slower than usual physical development. It was also arranged for him to attend some physio sessions, hydrotherapy and speech therapy. Whilst all of this made our little lion exhausted he responded well and we were encouraged that his development would soon catch up.
At one of Leo’s routine appointments we were advised that they would like to do an MRI scan and Cerebral Palsy was mentioned for the first time. At 17 months, following the scan, Leo was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy.
When we received Leo’s diagnosis we knew nothing about Cerebral Palsy and how Leo would be affected. There are many different strains of Cerebral Palsy and Leo’s diagnosis confirmed that his motor skills and learning ability would be affected.
Whilst devastated by the diagnosis we are confident that we will be able to HELP LEO WALK over the next few years and want to give him every opportunity to achieve this goal and for his Cerebral Palsy to have as little impact as possible on his life.
Leo continues with his physio and loves to splash around in the swimming pool, he also attends a football group for toddlers where he is the only child with a disability but we help him to join in as much as possible and he loves watching the other children.
However, there are so many more therapies which can help us achieve our goal to help him to walk but these are not available on the NHS, have to be arranged privately and are expensive, so anything you can give will bring us a step closer to this.
