Little Roxanne returns home after vital surgery in the USA
Brave Roxanne recovering from recent spinal surgery
LITTLE Roxanne Kelly has returned home to Carlow following her recent surgery in Florida.
As reported in recently, six-year-old Roxanne and her parents travelled to the Paley Orthopaedic and Spine Institute for specialist treatment following, what that family feel, are failures in their daughter’s care.
Her mum Mairín told this newspaper that the family are delighted to be home.
"It was a shorter stay than we first thought thank God," adding that Roxanne and her twin brother Curtis were thrilled to see each other.
“Roxanne is recovering from a low spinal surgery, which has relieved some of the pressure on her spinal cord. She had intensive clinical appointments. Their level of knowledge and care about rare diseases is second to none”.
Roxanne was born with a rare condition called Arthrogryposis, which severely impacts her physical movement in all four limbs. Once she has fully recovered from this surgery, the planned course of action is to operate on her hips, knees and legs. Mairín says this will enable Roxanne to sit.
“She will be able to sit post-surgery and not have to lie on her side to do all activities. She will have movement in her legs for the first time in her life. She has been on a waiting list for over four years now in Ireland for hip surgery with no sign of any treatment.”
Roxanne will travel back to the Florida clinic after Christmas.
“We will go back to Paley as Dr Feldman is an expert in this type of surgery. We met so many of his patients and they are all doing so well. This gives us real hope for Roxanne’s future,” said Mairín.
The family has spent over €50,000 on surgery and clinical appointments for Roxanne and Mairín wished to thank all those who have offered support, especially her work colleagues at Peter Mark hair salon at Carlow Shopping Centre, adding that they hope to be able to raise the additional funding required over the coming months.
On Sunday 15 September a charity run will take place at 11am from Dicey Riley's pub on Centaur Street, with people being encouraged "to run , walk, even crawl" the 5km event. Registration for Run for Roxanne is through Eventbrite and an evening of live music will follow the run. Donations to Roxanne's vital surgeries are also open through GoFundMe: Urgent Call To Help Roxanne.
