IN just under a week Georgie Gibbs will undergo the most important operation of her life which could one day mean she walks unaided.

The three-year-old's mum Clare said the biggest achievement she is looking forward to is hopefully walking Georgie to school with big sister Ella when she starts in reception class in September 2017.

But it is a smaller, and hopefully quicker, milestone which will let her parents Clare and Carl know the operation has been a success - seeing Georgie wiggle her toes for the first time.

It has been a long journey for the family after the selective dorsal rhizotomy was supposed to be given the green light in October.

The announcement was put on hold and the family launched the #HelpGeorgie campaign to either raise money to send Georgie, who has spastic diplegic cerebral palsy, to America for the operation or pay for her aftercare if she was to have it in the UK.

Mrs Gibbs, from St John's, spoke to your Worcester News as the family travelled to Bristol Royal Hospital for Children ahead of Wednesday's pre-op.

The five-hour operation is scheduled for Monday and her mother said she had been losing sleep worrying about it.

"It's a mixture of emotions - I'm very nervous because Georgie has been having intensive physio sessions so she is at her strongest right now and once she has had the operation that won't be the same.

"One of the hardest things will be saying goodbye to Ella on Sunday afternoon and it is making me sad just thinking about it.

"I'm not sleeping at the moment and I've been having bad dreams - I've had to go into autopilot really.

"It's been lovely though because all the messages of support have been coming in already and I just wanted to say thank you to everyone - I will respond to you but we've just been so busy.

"We've had fantastic support from everyone."

The family have been busy practising how to use Skype while they face weeks apart from one another.

It will be a long time before the family will be able to see an improvement in Georgie but the family hope that as she has mild cerebral palsy it will mean she will see life-changing benefits.

"We are being told she should be able to walk without a frame or a wheelchair.

"The results are very individual because some children have the condition more severe than others but every child who has had it has had huge success.

"Children who were in wheelchairs are now more mobile because they can use walking frames and are able to dress themselves then there are children who couldn't even sit up who are able to be more mobile.

"It's a cliche but we will take it all one step at a time."