Meet Scinergise beneficiary - Superman... sorry I mean Jasper! Read more on Jasper’s story and the rehabilitation that Scinergise sponsors him for below…
Jasper, 6, was fit and well before contracting Hand, Foot & Mouth disease at a Halloween party in October 2015. A rare complication saw this go to his heart and he was admitted to the Royal Brompton Hospital with dilated cardiomyopathy – an enlarged heart. Jasper was put on life support but when the doctors brought him around, he couldn’t move his legs: a blood clot had damaged his lower spinal cord and he was paralysed from the waist down.
Jasper was transferred to Stanmore and Stoke Mandeville spinal care units and was discharged in March 2016. During her research to find the best rehab for Jasper, his mother Kate came across the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation’s NeuroRecovery Network facility in Louisville, Kentucky. At the time their paediatric programme was offering cutting-edge therapies based on the latest advances in neurorestorative research, not yet available in the UK. There Jasper made significant improvements, but the family needed to find on-going therapy closer to home.
“Jasper and the family have been through so much, as I know you can both appreciate, and it is with the support of organisations such as Scinergise that make our new world a much less lonely, much more positive place to be.”
Fortuitously, in 2017 Neurokinex centre near Gatwick was chosen by the NeuroRecovery Network as its first and only affiliate outside of the US. Jasper and his family returned to the UK and approached The Neurokinex Charitable Trust with the idea of expanding to include a paediatrics programme, which opened its doors in April of 2018, called Neurokinex Kids. There Jasper continues in his recovery, against all odds, and is now even able to ride a bike with stabilisers. Due to his regular therapy programme, he has also avoided the myriad of secondary complications experienced by children living with paralysis, including scoliosis, hip dysplasia, stunted growth, bowel and bladder dysfunction, and pressure sores. As a result he Jasper been able to stay out of hospital and regain a much more ‘normal,’ active childhood thanks to Neurokinex Kids.
