Harlie's Off Road Wheelchair

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

My name is Harlie McFarlane and I am a six-year-old little girl who for the last 16 months has lived in South Ayrshire with my foster family.

We are a very active family and I love to be out and about exploring the countryside, but due to my very rare genetic condition I cannot walk and need a wheelchair to get about.

When I first came out of hospital to my new home I’d had very limited life experiences. I was born early and spent many months in Glasgow Hospital, after having an operation at just a day old to correct some issues with my digestive system.

When I came home I was very small and fragile and failed to thrive meaning I eventually had to have a PEG directly into my tummy so I can get all my food and nutrients.

During this time my mummy had my baby brother who also has the same condition as me and then COVID hit. My mummy was so scared she couldn’t take us out of the house, not even into the garden for a whole year.

This meant my immune system and ability to thrive were again impacted and I started to have infections which saw me return to Cross House Hospital and that is where I stayed for almost a year; the nurses and staff loved and cared for me very much (I am quite a character!) but it’s no place for a little girl to be.

That is when I came to the Birch’s and now I have a place I can grow, thrive, and experience life.

When I came to live with Georgette, Justin, Charlotte, and Austin I was nearly 5yrs old and quite small, I was half the size I should have been, but now I am catching up quickly and have outgrown the backpack Justin was able to carry me in!

At first we would go out exploring to all sorts of places, giving me my first outdoor experiences. Now my favourite places are the forest, beaches and wind farms.

But sadly this has become less as now I’m too heavy for the backpack and I can’t access them in my normal pushchair.

Justin, my foster father, became determined to find a way for me to explore all these outside places. He says I have the same right as any other little person of my age to adventure!

And this has led our search to an off road wheelchair (sadly not supplied by the NHS.) The K2 is an amazing light weight wheelchair with a carbon fibre seat and mountain bike wheels, it is supplied by a company in Edinburgh for little kids like me, (I think I would like the blue one!) It comes with a special moulded seat and a harness made to fit me.

However, the cost of this wheelchair is over £10,000!

As you can imagine Justin and Georgette would love to be able to afford this for a me but the cost is far beyond their reach, and all my care team including my Mummy and Daddy can really see how much this wheelchair will benefit me and my future development and wellbeing.

We recently visited one of my favourite places, a wind farm, but even though the tracks are good I nearly rattled out of the pram, and it was hard work for Justin and Georgette to push and drag me up the hills and round the tracks.

Thank you for reading this, and I really hope you can help me......

......I am ready to explore the great outdoors! 

Harlie x

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