Leoś needs surgery in the USA! Please help!

HELP❗️Leoś needs surgery in the USA - it is the only chance for him to develop normally... So that he can hear, speak and live like any other child. We do not know yet the cost of the surgery, but we know that it will cost several hundred thousand zlotys! We have to act now and we ask for help!

Leoś, our 1.5 year old son, was born with microtia and atresia. It means only one thing - he has no ear... On the right side of his head, where the auricle should be, there is a void. We are in an uneven fight for our son to hear and we really need support...

The whole pregnancy was going well. There was no indication that anything could be wrong. The day of Leoś' birth finally came, the date we had been waiting for - finally it was to be the three of us. We were to have a family birth, the two of us wanted to welcome our beloved son.... My husband was the first person to see the defect. "He has no ear," he told the doctors.

This information aroused consternation of everyone present.... Nobody knew what had happened, what was wrong with Leos and how to help us. We were also in shock - on the one hand happy that our son is with us now, on the other hand full of fear... We didn't know what missing ear meant - would our son be able to hear and speak normally, could he be helped in any way? The lack of answers to these questions caused great anxiety.

We were promised that all the information would be included in the medical report along with a further plan for our son's treatment. Unfortunately, this was not the case... We were left on our own, without any help. It's sad, but true. After leaving the hospital we had to pull ourselves together. We were helped by friends and family working in the health service. They gave us directions and provided contacts to specialists. We started fighting for Leoś' health, many times hitting a wall... Of course 90% of visits and tests took place in paid clinics.

It turned out that Leon has also problems with muscle tension, so we organized physiotherapy right away. Leon also goes for neurologopedic therapy. We were working with him every day and we are doing it till now.  Unfortunately, Leon still hasn't had any diagnostic scans done, so we don't know what the inner part of his ear looks like. Does he have an ear canal or not.... The neurologist advised us against this type of testing at this stage because of the risk of developmental regression.

Hearing is one of the most important senses with which we learn about the world... It is also very important in speech development. Leo can only hear with one ear, the left one... He cannot hear many things, it is hard for him to understand others... The beautiful world of sounds reaches him only from one side. This causes many dangers. The defect makes it difficult for him to learn to speak... We are afraid that he will be misunderstood and rejected.

Lack of an ear can even lead to problems with walking! This is because children, hearing out of one ear, lean to one hearing side. This can lead to deformed posture, deformed spine, deformed body... Leoś may have a postural defect... We cannot let that happen!

As far as we know, in Poland we cannot count on help in repairing such a defect as Leon has. Similar operations are performed only in much older children, and the ear made very often disappears anyway... Such defects are successfully operated on in the USA. Thanks to one operation, the son will become a completely healthy boy - doctors will reconstruct his auricle and, depending on how the ear looks like inside, they will open the ear canal or insert a special implant. Leoś will be able to hear and develop like any other child...

We are starting a fundraising campaign because we know that we have a very long way to go... An operation in the USA costs several hundred thousand zlotys. This amount is too much for us, like probably everyone else... We cannot count on any refund... However, we have to fight for our son's health. Speech is formed till the age of five, we have to act now to give Leoś a chance for the best possible development.

We want Leon to be able to live, hear and speak like other children. We would like to ask you for help. We will be grateful for any, even the smallest help.

Marta, Piotr and Leoś