Community support keeps Lisa mobile

Lisa Berry suffers from a rare condition called Charcot Marie Tooths – named after the three doctors who identified the hereditary disease that also affects her mother, her oldest son in Nowra, Gary Hill, and several other family members.

In fact she is part of Australia’s largest family of sufferers of the disease, which wastes muscles and nearness generally starting from the feet up, making mobility a real problem.

Mum Karon Barford was diagnosed with the condition while still a teenager, and in recent years has used a large red electric scooter to get around her home the rest of Ulladulla.

The scooter has become known as Big Red, and now Ms Berry has a scooter named Little Red, thanks to the community’s generosity.

Surviving on a disability pension since the age of 16, Ms Berry never had the money to buy a mobility scooter, but when she saw one advertised for just $600 she hoped there could be a way of raising the necessary funds.

An appeal for help through Facebook was taken up by a cousin in Merimbula, Sandie Kemp, who set about raising money to help buy the scooter.

“People are so generous, people who don’t even know me were going up to my cousin and handing her $50 to help with the fundraiser,” Ms Berry said.

To top it all off fishing boat owner Mark McDermott tossed in $480 to ensure the scooter could not only be bought, but there was a bit of money over to help Ms Berry meet other needs.

“We really want to thank everyone who helped out,” Ms Berry said.

She said the scooter “makes things so much easier”.

Struggling to walk and being forced to wear plain shoes than supported her crippled and painful feet meant Ms Berry rarely went out in public.

“You shut yourself up in the house because you don’t want to embarrass yourself going out, you think you don’t look nice in these poncey shoes,” she said.

“I was always stuck in the car or stuck in the house.”

Ms Berry said there were some really tough times dealing with the pain while knowing things were only going to get worse.

“You can hit rock bottom where you lose the will to live,” she said.

“But we don’t give up, even though sometimes we want to.”

However she said she was looking forward to doing simple things like walking her children to work in a life that was suddenly much easier and brighter.

“I’m not going to die from it, and there’s still so much I can do,” she said.