Eastbourne family shares story of three-year-old Jude in need of life-changing operation

An Eastbourne family is raising £80k to fund life changing treatment for their three-year-old.

Jude, who has spastic diplegia cerebral palsy, needs a life changing operation called selective dorsal rhizotomy to help him walk and live a pain free life.

Unfortunately, Jude narrowly missed out on NHS funding for the operation.

His devoted mum and dad, Sadie and Neil Belgrave, both nurses, are now desperately trying to raise the money to pay for the operation privately.

Sadie said, “Jude is considered too severe to be helped by the NHS – despite him being assessed by both the leading neurosurgeons Dr Park and Dr Aquilina and both saying he is a good candidate for the surgery and will greatly benefit from having the procedure.”

The family has set up a crowdfunder called Jude’s Giant Steps to pay for the operation privately either at the London Portland Hospital or St Louis Children’s Hospital in America.

Sadie added, “The money we need to raise is for the surgery itself and for the extensive and vital post operative physiotherapy programme that is required afterwards.”

In just three short years, Jude and his family have been on a heartbreaking and life-changing journey and are sharing their story with the Herald.

Sadie said, “Jude is a surviving identical twin and he was born nine weeks early.

“I had a rare complication called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome that was discovered at 20 weeks during my pregnancy .

“We were told by specialists that the only thing that could be done was to have placental ablation surgery, which may result in the loss of one twin.

“But if we did nothing both would die. Jude’s twin brother that we named Zachary did not survive. We were also told that if this happened Jude would arrive early.

“Completely heartbroken that things had gone wrong I had to continue my pregnancy for as long as I could.

“I had two haemorrhages and following the second one Jude was delivered at 31 weeks by emergency C-section.

“We didn’t even have a chance to see him when he was born as he was in a critical condition.