Good afternoon. I have never asked for anything before, but the time has come when I need to ask for financial help – not for myself, but for my daughter, Gytė. Gytė was born at 35 weeks; everything was fine. A month later, when we were on our way home, we were told that the little girl couldn’t hear anything, but that she might still recover. Every three months, we had tests done, but the results were always the same, and when she was nine months old, after another test, we were told that she was deaf. Then, two months after the diagnosis, she was fitted with cochlear implants, and so we have been using cochlear implants for a year now. My little princess is now 7 years old. On top of all that, in March, following a psychological assessment, she was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, also known as autism. It isn’t easy for her at the moment as she’s starting Year 1; she has her own personal assistant in class because it’s very difficult for her without one. We’ve been having ABBA therapy since April, which isn’t cheap – it costs around 500 euros a month. We also need a speech therapist, which the school doesn’t provide, and she really needs one right now. To get this, we have to go private, which costs between 30 and 50 euros an hour. 

I am a working mum; I do my best to look after her and am raising her on my own, though we do have her grandparents who help look after her and take care of her whilst I’m at work. They take her to and from school, and twice a week they take her to see our wonderful deaf education specialist, Eglė. She hasn’t had a dad for two years now.

It’s not easy to ask for help, but whatever you can give, even a few euros, will be a huge help to us. Because everything to do with hearing aids – if they break, we have to pay for them ourselves. Even today, I still have to pay €250 for water protection, and we also want to increase the number of ABBA therapy sessions per week. she currently receives it twice a week, which comes to 500 euros a month, but we want to increase it to five sessions a week, which would be 1,000 euros a month – and that is a huge amount of money for me. Below is the account for her support fund, where the money raised will be used solely for her, so that I can pay for the therapies and find a speech therapist for her privately.

 Our diagnoses are as follows 

 H90.3 bilateral sensorineural hearing loss

 F84.0 childhood autism

 F83 mixed specific developmental disorders

Fund details:

Gytė Jačunskaitė Charity and Support Fund

Account no. LT037044090112779954

Company code 306851936

Payment reference: support for Gyte

If you can, please share this, and if you’re able to, please contribute some money as she really needs it.