A family from Brighton has set up a crowdfunding campaign in a bid to bring their 6-year-old daughter to Israel for a special operation that will save her leg.
The Warrell’s only option for their daughter Kyra, 6, under the NHS is amputation. However, there is another option in Israel, but only if the family can raise enough funds by 1st February 2018.
The family’s fundraising page says the following:
Kyra is six years old, bright, joyful and mischievous. Like any other little girl her age, she loves playing energetically with her friends. She is facing the prospect of having her left leg amputated above the knee, due to a deformity she’s had since birth.
Kyra has Proximal Focal Femoral Deficiency (PFFD), a rare condition affecting fewer than 1 in 50,000 children in the world. This means she has a deformed hip, a shortened left thigh and unstable knee and ankle. As her left leg is so much shorter, she needs to wear a bulky and heavy prosthetic to help her walk, which causes her a lot of pain.
As she gets older, the deformity will become more pronounced, meaning that her prosthetic will be more difficult to manage, and will lead to complications with her hips and spine.
The only option we have here in the UK is for Kyra’s leg to be amputated above the knee in order to get a better-fitting prosthetic. Kyra’s life as an amputee would be a lifetime of disability. Whilst prosthetics enable her to walk, they cause pain and secondary medical problems, plus a lifetime of medical treatment.
The rare nature of PFFD makes it too costly for the NHS to treat a case as severe as Kyra’s. Not only because it requires specialist knowledge, but because it involves costly medical equipment and patients need months of intensive physiotherapy.
But there is another option!
After years of research, we have discovered a doctor with the experience to treat Kyra and save her leg.
Dr Dror Paley, world-renowned orthopaedic surgeon of the Paley Institute in Florida, is the most experienced limb lengthening and deformity correction surgeon in the world. He is an authority in his field, with decades of experience lengthening legs like Kyra’s, with a well-resourced team supporting him. Dr Paley has told us that not only can he lengthen Kyra’s leg, but that she will have a full range of motion – with no future complications – by the age of 16.
Kyra will need a series of lengthening operations over 10 years, but the first step is to correct her hip and ankle in February 2018.
To help Kyra get her operation, please consider supporting the family here.
