#BackingNoah
Donation protected
On Sunday March 8th our world came crashing down around us. Time ceased to exist. In it’s place was an uncontrollable storm of uninvited fear, horror and sadness. In the blink of an eye, something unimaginable had happened. Our beautiful 16 year old son, Noah, had fallen from his beloved dirt bike and had broken his back in two places.
Noah never lost consciousness throughout the entire agonising ordeal. “I’ll be alright Dad, I’ll be alright, I just need time to fix myself..” I will never forget those words, as he lay there, holding our hands. There was no blame, no anger, no excuses from Noah, just hope and positivity. Whether he knew it or not, Noah had given us our first flicker of belief, it was a rock to cling onto as we stared into the darkness.
The tick of a second hand, the free fall of that final grain of sand, the blink of an eye. That’s all it took for Noah’s ability to move and feel to come to an end. At precisely 2:40pm on the 7th March, Noah had broken his back and in the process had become paralysed from the chest down.
Six hours of emergency spinal surgery from the team at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford saw 2 titanium rods and 9 screws straighten and steady Noah’s T6 and T7 vertebrae, an internal scaffold tower securing his breaks. After that we moved to children's ICU, where we endured some of our darkest days. Endless wires, tubes, PICC lines and machines desperately pinged and bleeped around the clock as they took over many of his vital functions whilst they sustained and monitored Noah’s life. When you have a spinal injury, you not only lose the use of your legs, but all of your body's processes go to sleep - even going to the loo becomes an ordeal!
Noah was at the JR for six weeks, where they made him medically fit to move to the spinal rehab unit at Stoke Mandeville, which is where we are as I write this…where Noah is trapped in his own body.
As talented as the NHS are at fixing broken bones, a monumental lack of funding prevents Stoke from offering any meaningful rehabilitation. Instead patients are taught to live life in a wheelchair with little to no hope of a brighter future without the need of a chair with wheels. A financially limited recovery programme enables you to learn wheelchair skills instead of intense physio.
However, that is not how Noah wants to tackle it. We have had amazing support and guidance from the most unexpected places and we absolutely believe that Noah’s story is actually just beginning. It’s therefore now more than ever that we desperately need the internet to please do its thing.
Noah's mindset tells him that he will walk again, but to give him a real shot at that, we need more of everything. He needs full time physio, not just the 3 hours a week that is available at Stoke Mandeville. He needs hydrotherapy. He needs robotic stimulation. He needs options and therapies that are only available through the private sector, all of which come with a hefty price tag.
Many of you reading this will already know Noah but hopefully a great deal of you will only just be learning about him. Noah is possibly the most driven, level headed 16 year old I know. He’s hugely passionate about the things he loves. Skateboarding, riding his dirt bike and playing guitar. Noah learnt to walk at 9 months old and since then he has always been at one with his body whilst pushing the boundaries of what he’s capable of achieving. We bought him his first skateboard at the age of 4, and since then there’s barely been a day he hasn’t skated. Dirt bikes followed shortly afterwards at 5 and just last year he announced that he wanted to pursue a career in freestyle motocross (FMX). In a nutshell, Noah is always active. His biggest loathing is to be stuck indoors. His life now has become that of a caged bird with clipped wings. Please, if you can, help us free our beautiful boy.
UPDATE: We have been asked by Go Fund me to confirm various points about our fundraiser so that we can start to access the money that you have all so very kindly donated. As part of the process we have to answer their points on our Go Fund Me story page. The points are as follows:
1. Who you are and your relationship to the parties you're raising funds for:
We are Mr Ben Cosby and Mrs Candace Cosby, we are Noahs parents
2. How the funds will be used (be specific as possible, if this information isn’t already shared):
The funds will be used to pay for Noahs ongoing rehabilitation in his quest to one day walk again, this could be anything from intense physiotherapy programs, hydrotherapy sessions, medical/surgical applications. The funds will also be used to buy any machinery or devices that are deemed essential for his recovery or devices that may improved Noah’s everyday living and ability to get around.
3. If you intend to withdraw the money yourself, include how you plan to send the funds to the parties you're raising money for or how you plan to use the money on their behalf. If instead you’d like to add a beneficiary to the fundraiser so they can withdraw the funds directly, please confirm that you’ll be doing so. GoFundMe always recommends adding the beneficiary so that they can withdraw their funds directly.
The primary beneficiary will be Noah’s mother, Candace Cosby
Love the Cosbys xx
Noah never lost consciousness throughout the entire agonising ordeal. “I’ll be alright Dad, I’ll be alright, I just need time to fix myself..” I will never forget those words, as he lay there, holding our hands. There was no blame, no anger, no excuses from Noah, just hope and positivity. Whether he knew it or not, Noah had given us our first flicker of belief, it was a rock to cling onto as we stared into the darkness.
The tick of a second hand, the free fall of that final grain of sand, the blink of an eye. That’s all it took for Noah’s ability to move and feel to come to an end. At precisely 2:40pm on the 7th March, Noah had broken his back and in the process had become paralysed from the chest down.
Six hours of emergency spinal surgery from the team at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford saw 2 titanium rods and 9 screws straighten and steady Noah’s T6 and T7 vertebrae, an internal scaffold tower securing his breaks. After that we moved to children's ICU, where we endured some of our darkest days. Endless wires, tubes, PICC lines and machines desperately pinged and bleeped around the clock as they took over many of his vital functions whilst they sustained and monitored Noah’s life. When you have a spinal injury, you not only lose the use of your legs, but all of your body's processes go to sleep - even going to the loo becomes an ordeal!
Noah was at the JR for six weeks, where they made him medically fit to move to the spinal rehab unit at Stoke Mandeville, which is where we are as I write this…where Noah is trapped in his own body.
As talented as the NHS are at fixing broken bones, a monumental lack of funding prevents Stoke from offering any meaningful rehabilitation. Instead patients are taught to live life in a wheelchair with little to no hope of a brighter future without the need of a chair with wheels. A financially limited recovery programme enables you to learn wheelchair skills instead of intense physio.
However, that is not how Noah wants to tackle it. We have had amazing support and guidance from the most unexpected places and we absolutely believe that Noah’s story is actually just beginning. It’s therefore now more than ever that we desperately need the internet to please do its thing.
Noah's mindset tells him that he will walk again, but to give him a real shot at that, we need more of everything. He needs full time physio, not just the 3 hours a week that is available at Stoke Mandeville. He needs hydrotherapy. He needs robotic stimulation. He needs options and therapies that are only available through the private sector, all of which come with a hefty price tag.
Many of you reading this will already know Noah but hopefully a great deal of you will only just be learning about him. Noah is possibly the most driven, level headed 16 year old I know. He’s hugely passionate about the things he loves. Skateboarding, riding his dirt bike and playing guitar. Noah learnt to walk at 9 months old and since then he has always been at one with his body whilst pushing the boundaries of what he’s capable of achieving. We bought him his first skateboard at the age of 4, and since then there’s barely been a day he hasn’t skated. Dirt bikes followed shortly afterwards at 5 and just last year he announced that he wanted to pursue a career in freestyle motocross (FMX). In a nutshell, Noah is always active. His biggest loathing is to be stuck indoors. His life now has become that of a caged bird with clipped wings. Please, if you can, help us free our beautiful boy.
UPDATE: We have been asked by Go Fund me to confirm various points about our fundraiser so that we can start to access the money that you have all so very kindly donated. As part of the process we have to answer their points on our Go Fund Me story page. The points are as follows:
1. Who you are and your relationship to the parties you're raising funds for:
We are Mr Ben Cosby and Mrs Candace Cosby, we are Noahs parents
2. How the funds will be used (be specific as possible, if this information isn’t already shared):
The funds will be used to pay for Noahs ongoing rehabilitation in his quest to one day walk again, this could be anything from intense physiotherapy programs, hydrotherapy sessions, medical/surgical applications. The funds will also be used to buy any machinery or devices that are deemed essential for his recovery or devices that may improved Noah’s everyday living and ability to get around.
3. If you intend to withdraw the money yourself, include how you plan to send the funds to the parties you're raising money for or how you plan to use the money on their behalf. If instead you’d like to add a beneficiary to the fundraiser so they can withdraw the funds directly, please confirm that you’ll be doing so. GoFundMe always recommends adding the beneficiary so that they can withdraw their funds directly.
The primary beneficiary will be Noah’s mother, Candace Cosby
Love the Cosbys xx
Organizer
Ben Cosby
Organizer
England
