By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
THIRTEEN-year-old Connor Young has a winning smile despite radical, painful spinal surgery and a “shopping list” of medical conditions.
Now he needs the community’s help to get him back to his Hampton Park home.
For that to happen, Connor needs $40,000 for a new wheelchair, a hydraulic ramp for the family car, a modified car seat and a shower chair to be able to return from full-time respite care.
A bright-eyed Connor, who can’t talk or walk due to debilitating cerebral palsy, needed life-saving surgery in April due to his spine collapsing at a 133-degree angle over six months.
Connor’s head had become fixed in a horizontal plane; he couldn’t keep food down due to the spine cramping his stomach and other organs. Weighing just 17 kilos at the time, Connor survived 11-and-a-half hour surgery at Royal Children’s Hospital.
See the video Connor’s family and friends made about him.
During the procedure, his spine was pinned with rods and screws.
His dad Craig describes Connor being on a rack as surgeons gradually manipulated the spine and cut through muscles to fuse him into a more upright position.
Currently he sits nearly straight in his chair (at 66 degrees) and hence “grew” 10 centimetres, rendering his wheelchair and car seat undersized.
Connor stays six days a week at a respite house because he can no longer be lifted manually into bed, the car, bath, shower and his wheelchair due to his spinal fusion.
Apart from Connor’s short stays at home, his mother Belinda often visits him at his school and respite house in Seaford. She stayed by Connor’s side for days and nights on end during his four-week hospital stay.
“It’s been really tough and put a strain on the whole family,” she said.
Perhaps his big sister Caitlin puts it best in her poem I Love My Brother Connor which was written during his darkest times in hospital. “He is simply amazing and I just couldn’t imagine my life without him,” she wrote.
Connor’s aunt, on behalf of the family, has set up a crowd-funding site. To donate go to https://www.gofundme.com/helpingconnor.
