CITY RAISES MONEY TO SAVE WILLIAM’S LEG

THIS time next year the mother of William Dickinson hopes he is “fouryear-old terror” like all his friends.

In just eight months, mother Aimee and the Gold Coast community have raised $185,000 to fly William to a specialist surgeon in the US to treat the rare disorder congenital pseudarthrosis which has affected bone development in his right leg.

“We did it. I can’t believe it,” Ms Dickinson said yesterday of organising the treatment.

“It got scary toward the end when we’d got to January and we had flights booked for March but all of a sudden everything came together.”

Next month, the pair will fly to Florida where Dr Dror Paley will perform a ninehour surgery transplanting bone from William’s hip to his leg to repair a break which never healed due to his condition.

Ms Dickinson said the support of the Southport Lions Club through Bill Goodrem, the Gold Coast Community Fund and the I Can I Will children's charity and media reports were invaluable to her raising the money for the surgery, which has a 99 per cent success rate.

“We have such a good network of people, close friends and my mum.”

No matter how exhausted she got, Ms Dickinson said she did not have any doubt about getting the treatment for her son. “There are some days you want to but you just can’t give up, you end up getting the bug for it.

“I never even thought whether I could or couldn’t do it, it was just something I wanted for William.”