Our lovely nearly five-year-old daughter Isabel, who lives in Eynsham near Oxford, suffers from cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and cortical visual impairment.

The beginning of Isabel's life was very traumatic and the doctors thought she wouldn't even be able to breathe on her own when they made their first attempt to take her off the ventilator. Isabel proved them wrong and we hope that with the extensive therapies for which we are fundraising she will continue to do so!

Isabel can't sit or crawl yet but there are many other activities she loves, such as going to the swimming pool (even better, Jacuzzi), having music sessions at home, going in a ‘walker’ (an elaborate piece of equipment recently created in Norway that lets her enjoy the experience and exercise of walking), or just being taken for a swing in the garden or playground. Above all, Isabel loves being among people, especially little ones, sharing their conversations and joys. Her best friend is her sister Natalie. They sleep together every night (Natalie won’t have it any other way) and it is difficult to separate them in the morning, which can be a problem as Isabel has, believe it or not, just started school – the marvellous Springfield in Witney – and has to be ready, dressed and breakfasted, by 8.20 am latest.

Since we started this fundraising campaign Isabel has benefited immensely from many inspiring specialists and therapies paid for through contributions to this page, including weekly trips to the Footsteps Centre (in the village of Dorchester) for physiotherapy and orofacial therapy, regular music and art sessions at home every week with the wonderful Wojtek, Katheryn and Iza, horse-riding in Oxfordshire, and trips to the Zabajka rehabilitation centre in the Polish countryside, which Isabel loves. Isabel and her parents, Ania and Oliver, are so grateful to all the kind relatives, friends and anonymous donors who have made this possible. Thank you, Grazie, Dziękuję and Spasiba! It is amazing that we have exceeded our target – but we are keeping the page going as nearly all of the collected funds have already been spent...

A special thank you to Nonna Marisa, who just this summer walked the South Down Way with Nonno Nigel over ten long days and raised a further £4,750 pounds!