Paige was born on August 20th 1998 in The Bay of Plenty, New Zealand.
At the time of birth she suffered a major lack of oxygen. This led to brain damage that was so bad our little girl was left with severe Cerebral Palsy, Microcephaly and Epilepsy.
Paige has also suffered kidney failure due to a bug she contracted, but due to her low immunity and associated problems due to her brain damage she required dialaysis. Paige has had a long journey through the medical system with several medically induced comas and has been on life support due to being in a constant epileptic state. We have had to brace ourselves many times for the reality that we may lose Paige, but she has shown strength upon strength and pulled through many medical problems that the doctors never expected possible. Knowing her strength and resilience we are on a quest to give her every opportunity to improve her health and function that is available.
Paige is now 11 years of age and a beautiful happy loving girl. Her brothers and sisters adore her as she does with them. We love watching Paige and her brothers and sisters play, but her ability to interact is limited as she is unable to verbally communicate with us and needs a wheelchair to help position her in sitting and to get around. She can’t enjoy meals with the family as she has a tube (PEG feed) for feeding and drinking. Paige needs to be lifted with a special hoist whenever she goes to bed and we take care of all her daily activities for her (bathing, changing, combing her hair, etc.) She needs full-time care. It’s difficult to take Paige out to the playground, to school or the shops.
Our journey so far has been difficult to say the least but we will continue to give Paige the best quality of life we can.
We have already pursued ground-breaking treatments such as HBOT (hyperbaric Oxygenation Therapy) and Ketogenic Diet (treatment for epilepsy) and of course Paige has ongoing intensive massage. All have been very successful. This has helped her become stronger and more alert so that she can now handle the further therapies that we want to pursue. You can read more about the research into the treatments we are pursuing for Paige such as Pediasuit therapy and HBOT (Hyperbaric Oxygenation Therapy) on this site and you will also find links to other useful articles. Eventually we hopefully want to be considered for stem cell treatment
The most pressing need we have is to meet Paige’s immediate and ongoing equipment needs. There is information about this here.
We hope that by giving Paige the opportunity to have these therapies she will
1. Be able to relax her muscles and control her movements a bit more.
2. To be able to sit up and to eat with her mouth instead of a tube
3. To generally increase her health and well-being so that she isn’t at risk of frequent hospitalisations and the fear that she might not make it home each time.
Thank you so very much for taking the time to consider how you can help our family, and ensure Paige has access to treatment and equipment to allow her as promising a future as possible.