Can you help Aylesbury family raise funds so their daughter can have surgery on scoliosis?

Lily Ruby, 11, was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis, a condition which means she has two curves in her spine, and struggles to do the activities she loves because her aches and pains are getting worse.

Lily's parents Pauline and Ray Ruby said: "She has an “S” shaped scoliosis meaning she has two curves along her spine.

"Her lumber curve is 46 degrees and her thoracic curve is 37 degrees and she has a rib hump rotation and a trunk shift.

"Lily has been wearing a brace for 23 hours a day, she has been very good in wearing it and never complains, but still the curve is progressing at an alarming rate.

"We are now finding that we need to think about surgery for Lily.

"We knew she would need surgery at some point but didn’t think it would be so soon."

Lily's deteriorating condition means doing her favourite physical activities - trampolining, horse riding, dancing and walking her two dogs are increasingly difficult.

Pauline said: "There wasn't one particular thing that raised the alarm - initially we realised that one of her shoulder blades was not even.

"One time when she bent over we saw there was a rotation on her rib hump and noticed that one side of her back was higher than the other.

"It really hit us when we saw the X-rays of her back - my heart sank when I saw she had two curves in her back.

"Our NHS have been brilliant and supportive and are able to offer a spinal fusion but with Lily's curves this means it will limit her flexibility and the fusion will accelerate adjacent segment degeneration.

"We have looked into another type of surgeřy called Vertebral Body Tethering (V.B.T) surgery in Germany.

"This will enable Lily to keep her flexibility and she will recover from surgery much quicker as it's less invasive.

"At present VBT is not available in this country so our only option is to try to raise some funds to enable Lily to go to Germany to have this surgery.

"Lily's doctor in Germany would like to do the surgery once Lily is 12 years old in June 2019.

"By waiting it will give the best results however if one of the curves reaches 50 degrees before she's 12 we need to go ahead and plan for immediate surgery."

Lily, who goes to the Grange School said: "My back has got worse and it has got harder to do things.

"I love trampolining and dog walking and when I do these my back will hurt a lot."

The surgery in Germany is likely to cost around forty-seven thousand euros.

Lily's parents added: "We felt a bit guilty about setting up this fundraising page but we are very pleased at the response we have had so far."

To donate visit www.gofundme.com/lilys-scoliosis-vbt-surgery