By Euro Weekly News Media • Published: 19 Sep 2013 • 7:41
By Dilip Kuner
A COUPLE is facing a €15,000 bill in the fight to make life better for their desperately disabled little girl.
Lara Gracie, just four years old, was born mentally and physically disabled. She suffers from, amongst other conditions, Beals Syndrome, which means she has physical and cranial deformities.
She needs constant care. Her parents Steffi, 35, originally from Germany, and Johnny, 40, from Paisley, Scotland, work different shifts so there is always someone on hand to watch her.
Speaking from their Miraflores, Mijas Costa, home their love and dedication to Lara shines out.
As we talk Lara, in her made-to-measure splints and special walking frame, keeps active – a real handful for Johnny.
The restaurant worker said: “This frame and the splints have made a huge difference. Before she couldn’t move around and was in a great deal of pain. The NHS splints were just not suitable for her. Unfortunately she is growing out of them.
Steffi, an office worker, said: “There is so much that she needs that really makes a difference. Unfortunately most of it is not available on the NHS. We have to raise the money to give Lara a better life.”
She went on to list the splints, made to measure in Germany, as one of the biggest expenses. “They cost €4,000, but by the time we have flown there and paid for accommodation and car hire to run backwards and forwards to hospital it is much more.
“She is due special oxygen therapy which the father of Tomas Leighton (who generous EWN readers have helped in his battle against disability) recommended. The next course will cost €450.”
She added: “In total we need to raise €15,000 to make her life as comfortable as possible. We could possibly save it ourselves over four or five years, but Lara needs it now.”
Johnny added: “Really we are having to swallow our pride. We do not like asking for help. But it is for Lara not us.”
The family is now setting up a charity to be called LGG. The Euro Weekly News will be making a donation.
The family can be contacted at lgg09@yahoo.com. Donations can be made at, and more information found, at http://www.gofundme.com/3kwcfw, or put into Lara’s fund Santander bank account number: 0049 5792 13 2995029083.
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