I started this fundraising page a few years ago now and since then, with the help of friends, family and work colleagues, we've been working towards our target and have already started making adaptations to the house that will make it much more suitable for him.

George is happy little boy that melts the hearts of everyone he meets with his infectious giggle. The first born of twin boys it was obvious early on that George wasn’t developing the same as his twin brother. He was diagnosed with an incredibly rare genetic disorder at six months and is the only person worldwide with his particular chromosome duplication (he has extra bits of chromosomes 2 and 9) so he’s totally unique.

George has a learning disability that makes him similar in development to a two year old. He finally learnt to sit up when he was three and stand when he was six, but it’s slow progress. Incredibly, soon after his 8th birthday, George took his first tentative steps and now he's 12 his confidence is growing every day. He's still unsteady and we're finding there are a lot of trip hazards for him making us even more determined to adapt the house.

He’s also autistic, suffers from seizures due to epilepsy, is registered partially sighted and has a gastrostomy to help him eat and drink but despite this he is always ready to smile and giggle.

Although George can’t yet move around completely independently or talk he manages to make himself understood most of the time. He tends to spend most of his time lying on the floor playing with his toys. He also has a supportive chair so that he can join in with family activities but it’s very big and heavy and difficult to move around. We do our best to make sure he’s included by picking him up and carrying him around but as he gets older and heavier this is getting more and more difficult. It's also getting increasingly difficult to lift him in and out of the bath safely so we are planning an adapted wet room with a walk-in bath that will make his favourite bath time much more straightforward and safe.

Other adaptations we're planning include making the front of the house level access so we don’t have to lift his heavy wheelchair over the doorstep. We also want to make all the rooms downstairs level so that George will be safe moving around more independently.

Converting the house to make it safer and more accessible would make a huge difference to all of us. If we raise enough funds we're planning a specially adapted sensory den too!

Thank you so much to everyone who has donated or helped our fundraising efforts so far and thanks for reading George's story xx

Should we exceed the target amount, or if they cannot be used for any other reason, the funds raised will go to the general funds of Tree of Hope to assist other sick children.