There are times when little Tyra Lee runs, jumps and plays like any other four-year-old.

And then there are those times when, in the midst of her play, she simply falls.

It's the latest reality of her ongoing condition which doctors here can't seem to treat, let alone name.

"This makes two types of seizures that she gets now. She will just fall down, just like that," said mother Sherry Lee, speaking to the SUNDAY SUN after receiving a cheque for $2 000 from the students and staff of the St Michael school.

Lee has no close affiliation with the school but after the principal heard of little Tyra's problems at his church, the school initiated a charity and responded in a big way.

Since earlier reports in the press, the Lees have found a hospital in New York. It has quoted US$20 000 for Tyra's stay and treatment.

It's a small fortune for the Block 14F, Silver Hill, Christ Church family, but Sherry is hoping that this donation will spark others to help her little girl who has received more than her fair share of bumps and bruises in her short four years.

She broke her left collarbone while outside playing when she was three and almost broke her jawbone on another occasion.

There are scars on her chin which tell the story of many hard falls and there is a bump on her forehead – the result of one of her sudden spells where her body simply does not seem able to carry her fine frame anymore. Things have got so bad that Tyra has begun wearing a helmet at home.

"She does not understand what is happening with her own body," said Sherry. "You will tell her to sit down and then she will get back up and go again. Some days I have to strap her in the stroller because she just won't keep quiet."

Even in the course of the interview with her mother, Tyra's childlike banter and play came to an abrupt halt with a thump as she hit the ground and then a shrill cry as her lip began to bleed.

Stopping in mid-sentence, her mother ran to her. "You see what I mean, just like that she falls."

Tyra's situation was first identified when she went to day care and the nannies there realised that she was having seizures.

Those were the sort which most people would be able to identify, where her body shook, jerked and trembled.

"I heard that they were taking her to the Randall Phillips Polyclinic and I headed there. But when I was on my way I heard that they were taking her to the hospital and I had to turn around and head there," said Lee.

She was pregnant at the time and dealing with this unexpected condition of her third child was "stress".

Now that Tyra's condition has worsened, and there is the sudden, inexplicable falling to contend with, school is impossible.

"I can't go to work, I have to stay with her. She can't go to school," Sherry said.

The only school best equipped to deal with her daughter's problem was the Children's Development Centre.

"And she can't go there. There is too slow for her. She was learning really well, you know, she is a bright child, it is just this," she said.

Nova Scotia on Broad Street has opened an account – No. 9004224 – for little Tyra and the family hopes that Barbadians will respond and help their daughter remedy her body's pains.