Carnoustie twins Ayley and Chloe Hirsch are packed and getting set to travel to America for life-changing surgery.
The Hirsch family will jet out on January 6 for the operation that will see damaged nerves cut from Ayley and Chloe’s spines.
Parents Averil and Frazer’s battle to raise funds for life-changing surgery for their disabled twins captured the public’s imagination when the campaign was launched in February.
The three-year-olds suffer from cerebral palsy and face a life of immobility unless they travel to America to undergo highly specialised surgery.
Averil and Frazer had set themselves the target of pulling together the £80,000 needed for the surgery but more than £175,000 flooded in from the community.
The operation, called selective dorsal rhizotomy, has been carried out successfully in St Louis Children’s Hospital for the past 20 years.
Averil told The Courier: ”We’re all very excited and we are pretty much ready to go. If you ask the girls, they will tell you they are going to see Dr Park and he is going to fix their legs.
”They obviously don’t know the finer details but they are very much looking forward to it although they were more excited about Santa coming.
”It’s an amazing thing that has happened to our family and we are very overwhelmed with all the support we have had.
”Everybody, from all over, has rallied round and taken the girls’ campaign to heart and £175,000 is a lot of money to have raised.”
In November 2010, the hospital’s famed surgeon, Dr TS Park, worked on another toddler, Jack McNaughton, from Almondbank. His life has been transformed.
He eliminated the pain and spasticity in Jack’s body, making him much more mobile and able to learn how to walk.
Averil was unaware of the surgery until she read of the progress of Jack in The Courier and contacted his parents, Stacey and Graham. They were invited to their home to see Jack’s remarkable recovery, which made Averil’s mind up and she contacted Dr Park in St Louis.
Averil and Frazer also got married this year, with Ayley and Chloe and big sister Lilly flower girls on the big day as their parents tied the knot at the Queen’s Hotel in Dundee.
She said: ”This time last year we didn’t know about this operation and now we’re getting ready to go to America to see Dr Park. Everything has moved so quickly and we also got married it’s a year we will never forget and 2012 might be even better.
”The girls will have their operation and hopefully, four or five months down the line, they will be up and running about like their friends, which is what we have been hoping for.”
While Ayley and Chloe are aware they are going to America to be seen by Dr Park, they are still too young to understand exactly what they will be going through. Dr Park will operate on the twins at the same time so their recovery is at the same rate.
After the operation they will be in intensive care until they have recovered enough to come out and there will be a further three weeks of treatment before they can come home.
Averil said: ”You can’t go for this operation without putting the work in afterwards or it just won’t work.
”You have got to put in the work when you come home and that is intense physiotherapy and we are all prepared for that. We have got our personal trainer and physio ready for when we come home so we are ready to go.
”Seeing the girls up and running about would be a dream come true.”