Thank you for taking the time to visit this page. We, the family and friends of Izzy, appreciate you doing so.
Izzy's Story
Izzy was born a healthy little girl and was happy and very fun loving. At 18mths old Izzy had a severe allergic reaction to her vaccination which caused severe Stevens-Johnson Syndrome. She started to burn from the inside out and all her skin came off. She spent the next two weeks in the ICU at Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne while they tried to save her life. She was then moved to the burns ward for the next 3 months and nursed back to health. She has learned to walk again and eat again. Her skin also grew back with minimal scarring. Sadly, the life long damage has been to her eyes - she is now blind and can only see colour and movement. Her corneas were completely scarred and stuck to her eyelids.
Early last year Izzy had surgery to separate her left eye from her eyelid which was done successfully however it left the cornea in a very fagile thin state. 2 months later Izzy accidently puncutured her left eye with the end of a pair of glasses and required an emergency corneal transplant. Izzy now wears protective glasses 24/7 so does not damage her eye again. Her right eye is still stuck down to the eyelid and she cannot see out of this until she in operated on in the near future.
She is on daily immune suppression medication for her transplant and has had so many operations I have lost count but continues to be a brave smiley happy girl. In addition to all of this she suffers from Photophobia and Dry-Eye Syndrome and must constantly have ointment and drops in her eyes for the rest of her life - to give you an idea of the constant pain she has - her eyes feel like she has sand in them all the time, that horrible gritty feeling. She also suffers from Photophobia.
Izzy's Garden
Izzy requires full time care and lots attention and as she will need to learn braille this will only continue. I would love your help to build Izzy a beautiful safe sensory garden/outdoor space and a specially designed cubby house for her special visual impairment where she can feel interesting textures and have a space to relax and pretend play and learn how to grow vegetables and have braille placed around it to continue her learning.
The sensory garden would have enclosed running water which she loves to listen to, lots of difference textured stones to feel, 3d wall paintings, climing wall, cubbyhouse converted to her needs with furnishings and slide and swing which she just loves to do. Izzy spends a lot of time lying down resting so we would include an area outside in the shade that she do this and relax with the water.
We need your help to make this beautlful garden happen. Whatever funds we raise even if we dont reach our entire goal will go towards this dream. The more funding we get the more sensory/colour aspects we can add to the garden.
We would be entirely grateful to eveyone who contributes and for those that cannot to if you can share this dream we would be entirely grateful.
This dream garden will allow Izzy to play uninhibited and without fear and to encourage her imagination and learning of the amazing world around her.
What' Next
We know the cost of creating this outdoor space will exceed $10,000 - but we didn't want to set an overwhelming goal, so if we beat this amout by the thousands or more, it will all go to helping Izzy enjoy her life trying new challenges like the feeling of the wind in your hair through bike riding whilst being safe in a cart. Every penny counts. So again thank you.
By contributing, even the smallest amout to helping Izzy's Garden be built, you'll be able to receive updates from her family on the changes this has made to her life and well being.
We will constanty try to keep our contributers updated as to Izzy's health status. We will continue to do so as long as there is news to provide. If you can not contribute you can always visit our updates page here on the indiegogo site.
