*** Donations are tax-deductible *** What would you do if you saw your child wasting away without any answers? Like most parents we would do anything for our children? Abby was once so full of life and now she is bedridden. Sadly we know we are not the only parents in Australia who have to leave the Country to find medical care for their child’s needs so we gracefully ask you to consider helping us in any way possible. At the beginning of 2020 Abby was a healthy, happy, active 14 year old girl who was striving, with her dance partner to be an Australian Ballroom Champion. They were well on their way to achieving that goal by placing 2nd in the under 21 category at the Australian Dancesport Championships in December 2019. In February 2020 Abby contracted what seemed to be an everyday viral infection. She had a cough, sore throat and oddly was suffering from severe headaches and massive blood noses. After ruling out anything sinister under our GP’s advice and our own experiences with viral infections we assumed this infection would pass and life would go back to normal. Three months later things were getting worse, Abby's weight plummeted to 45kgs with Dr's putting everything down to mental health, attention seeking, anxiety and anorexia. Failed hospital visits and numerous tests caused Abby's world, and ours to be plagued with her being constantly fatigued, suffering extreme nausea and excruciating pain battling daily with headaches/migraines, temperature dysregulation, blurry vision and blackouts, abdominal pain, dizziness, brain fog, severe reactions to smells/medications/heat & cold, nerve pain, numbness and no circulation in her legs, no hunger cues, extreme weight loss and malabsorption. COVID-19 restricted us from being able to get Abby to Sydney specialist's for help but in late 2020 Abby was diagnosed with Gastroparesis (her stomach is paralyzed) and POTS (a condition that affects blood flow & circulation). Days, weeks and months went by but nothing was getting better for Abby. In October 2021 Abby was then diagnosed with a rare compression disorder, MALS (Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome) this means that her celiac artery is compressed which restricts blood flowing through to the organs in her upper abdomen. After ALOT of research and countless sleepless nights their are a series of compression disorders that unfortunately can go hand in hand. Most recently we discovered another compression of her left renal vein which makes us think there could be further compressions that we just do not know about. Finding help with these very rare conditions in Australia has been very challenging. Abby is now 16, with the last two years going by in a blur, unable to dance at all or do everyday activities like go to school or walk for more that 1 minute without her legs going numb or most shockingly being not able to drink more than 200mls per day or eat more than a small palm full of food without wanting to curl up and die from the pain. We have been lucky to find a leading Professor & Surgeon located in Germany that we need to get Abby to ASAP for a full specialized ultrasound that will explain what is happening in her body, why it is happening and then a surgical plan to fix it before it is to late. At this point in time we do not have total costings of what we are looking at, all we know right now is we need to be in Leipzig on Tuesday the 17th May with surgery booked in Düsseldorf on Thursday 19th May. Since reaching out to Germany they have reviewed a few of Abby’s scans and are pushing for us to proceed so quickly as her weight is not stable and if it drops too low surgery will not be able to go ahead. Therefore this is happening and it is very hard for us to ask for help to assist with this journey. We appreciate from the bottom of our hearts any donation that you are able to give but if you are not in a position to be able to donate it would mean a lot to us if you could please share our story ❤️ Donations made to Abby through the charity Helping A Friend in Need (HAFIN) are tax deductible.