STEPing towards a future for Harrison
This September I’m moving to support people with cerebral palsy by taking on the STEPtember challenge for Cerebral Palsy Alliance (CPA).
I’ve committed to moving my way to 15,000+ steps every day of September, rain or shine, which is going to be a challenge! Every dollar I raise will support life-changing research, treatment, services and technologies to help babies, children and adults with cerebral palsy.
As
someone with a very close friend whose little boy Harrison has this condition,
I’ve seen first-hand the challenges that he faces every day, so anything I can
do to indirectly support him, I am going to do.
To say that his Mum is a superhero, is definitely an understatement…
For those of you who don’t know much about this condition (and I was one of them up until a year ago), CP is an umbrella term for a group of movement disorders that affect movement and posture due to damage to the developing brain. There are approximately 34,000 people living with CP in Australia – and although there are a magnitude of therapies and interventions that can support children with CP develop to their own full potential, there is no cure. CP is therefore a lifelong condition, and causes problems with movement, and many people will also suffer from an intellectual disability, seizures, problems with vision, hearing or speech.
1 in 2 are in chronic pain, 1 in 3 can’t walk, and 1 in 4 can’t talk.
There is no single cause of CP, and as in Harrison’s case, CP was caused by a condition called Bilateral Polymicrogyria that he developed at a very late stage in utero.
With your support, CPA can provide early detection and intervention therapy which can drastically improve the future of these babies’ lives. It could be the difference between whether a child can walk or talk.
