A 16 year old Cobh girl whose family need to raise €300,000 for surgery in the US says she can't understand why she can't be treated in Ireland.
Junior Cert student Katie Byrne has cerebral palsy and has had a dislocated hip since she was two years old.
Katie had surgery in America in 2014 when she was 7 which allowed her to walk by herself for the first time ever.
Her family now need to raise funds for her to get another operation in Florida followed by 6 weeks of post-surgery physical therapy.
Speaking to RedFM News, Katie says she is used to dealing with pain and falls:
"I've been told that I have a very high threshold of pain, but I do experience a decent amount of pain. Sometimes my legs will seize up and I'll just have to have a hot water bottle, or there'll be some days that I can't go to school because of the pain. So it affects what I'm doing in school, because I'm doing my Junior Cert. This morning, I woke up and I fell when I got up, so I had to get help to get up but I just took painkillers and went to school, because it's only a half day today. If I was doing anything like P.E., I probably wouldn't have gone to school, because I wouldn't have been able to do anything".
Details of the GoFundMe campaign can be found at:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-katie-get-hip-surgery?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_content=undefined&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer&utm_term=undefined
