Cerebral Palsy is a neuromuscular disease that affects the cerebellum in the brain. Lila's cerebellum has been growing at a slower rate than the rest of her brain. Lila's issues are mainly physical. Her parents have started a blog called, Mommy you know what, to raise awareness of the disease as well as funds for much needed stem cell therapy. Here is a bit of information about Lila that I borrowed from her mother, Maria's blog:
“Lila is a beautiful 4-year-old girl, who lives with cerebral palsy and hasn’t been given a fair chance at life. We, Lila’s parents, are on a quest to give her that fair chance by allowing her to have a stem cell treatment this coming summer.
Since birth, Lila’s cerebellum has been growing at a slower rate than the rest of her brain. The cerebellum controls a multitude of things that we all take for granted (i.e. balance, coordination, emotion, muscle tone, muscle control). The majority of Lila’s issues are physical, as she walks with a walker, has no balance or coordination, and has low muscle tone.
Stem cell treatments with CP have been proven to help the child with speech annunciation, balance, strength, and increased levels of cognitive abilities. In every child, the levels of these changes differ, however they have all been seen time and time again. If these changes are all we see in Lila, this will certainly change her life forever, and you will have helped!
All of that being said, she is a very happy little girl who seems to shine a light on everyone she comes across. There are people in our community that know and love her, whom we don’t even know! I seem to believe it is her smile that captures everyone’s hearts, as she has ours. What a special little girl, one that has taught us how to love unconditionally, to not take the little things for granted, and to know that each little milestone is truly a really big milestone!
We love her so much and just want to give her a chance for a more “normal” life. For Lila that means that she may have the chance to have a college education, career, marriage and a family. Our goal is to raise $20,000 by mid-June, however we hope to surpass that goal give Lila have a second treatment after one year, which is recommended by the doctors and could benefit her tremendously. We hope that you all will join us on our journey, and embrace our little girl just as we have!” (as told by Maria)
Today's post is part of a "blog hop" that my creative friend Sarah Stevenson put together to support her friends Maria and Lila. Sarah started off the blog hop on her blog, What is Design? It's been very inspiring reading all the different blogs that have participated. Our goal of the blog hop is to raise awareness of Lila and her journey and funds for her stem cell therapy.
I'd like to offer a way for you to help out Lila. From today, April 15th, until the end of the month I'd like to donate 25% of all my Stacie Jewelry Etsy sales to Lila and her Stem cell therapy fund. All you need to do is hop over to my Etsy shop and purchase a piece or two of jewelry. I will automatically keep track of the sales and donate the 25% to Lila on May 1st. Please share this fundraising information with your friends and family. I'll keep you posted through twitter and facebook about our progress. After the fundraiser is over, I'll write a post to let you know how much we raised.
You can hop on over to Angie Allen's blog, Snap Shots of the Daily Grind on Monday, April 18th for the next post about Lila. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to read about Lila.
