Family need to raise €70k for young Luke’s therapy
By Maurice Garvey
A BENEFIT night for a young kid with an extremely life limiting condition, is set to take place in early October.
Luke Cross (4) from Clondalkin is the only person in Ireland to be diagnosed with AADC (aromatic amino acid decarboxylase deficiency) - a rare brain disorder.
Luke Cross is diagnosed with AADC with mam Emma Styles
His mother Emma Styles is organising a benefit night at Thomas Davis GAA Club on Saturday, October 5, at 8pm.
Grange View Road resident Emma, who is also mother to MJ (6), and separated from the kids’ father, started a fundraising drive to get Luke to Poland for Gene Therapy.
This goal is to raise €70k for treatment and after-care, according to Emma, who originally grew up in Rathfarnham.
Luke is wheelchair bound, fed through a peg, requires round the clock care, suffers weekly seizures, and has to take 21 daily medications.
“You have to get on with it and keep going, there is no choice, you would do anything for your kid,” Emma told The Echo in August.
In 2015 Emma raised close to €9k for the charity AADC Research Trust – who recently linked Luke with brain surgery in Poland.
Emma says the trialed therapy in Poland is the only thing that could improve Luke’s condition, and a number of different gene therapy cases have produced “incredible” results.
“We have great raffle prizes and a pub quiz for the event at Thomas Davis GAA.”
Tickets for the October 5 event are €10, on the door they are €12, and it is €5 for 5 raffle tickets.
