Make-A-Wish wishes allow parents to capture memories of their critically ill children, a parent has said.
All this week Newstalk is teaming up with Make-A-Wish to raise money for children with critical illness.
Make-A-Wish creates life-changing wishes for children with critical illness.
Ruth McDonnell is the mother of Ruairí and Fionn who had the same genetic illness, Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), and both have been granted a wish by Make-A-Wish.
Fionn’s illness was caught early and thankfully he is doing well after a long and difficult journey.
Sadly, Ruairí passed away in 2022, at the age of nine.
Ruairí’s wish was to have sensory equipment and Fionn’s wish was to have football goals.
Both boys thoroughly enjoyed the donations they received from Make-A-Wish – especially as Ruairí’s sensory equipment brought him and his siblings joy through his final months.
On The Pat Kenny Show, Ms McDonnell said because of the sensory equipment she has “so many memories” of the boys together.
“Make-A-Wish came into our lives in March 2020 – Ruairí got this amazing climbing frame that we put into the middle of the kitchen, a trampoline and a hammock, so everything that he could move or climb on,” she said.
“What’s so amazing about Ruairí is that at this point he had lost his sight, his voice, his laughs, all of these beautiful things, [but] he could hear us, and he could walk.
“We knew he loved to climb, that was his very nature was to climb – so he would feel his way around the climbing frame in the middle of the kitchen.
“He would climb to the top of this frame in his bare feet, stand completely straight up and touch the roof with his two hands, holding on to nothing – that climbing frame, it was a joy for him.”
Ms McDonnell also encouraged parents to trust their gut and contact their GP if they’re noticing even small changes within their child which seem troublesome
“I would just say trust your instinct and trust your gut as a mother or as a parent,” she said.
“There was just little things with Ruairí but yet 90% of the time he was still himself, it was just little things were changing ever so slightly.
“He was a very happy, healthy boy, a happy, healthy toddler – leading up to the day of diagnosis, the only changes I could identify really were behavioural changes, which I would have put down to ADHD – which is very common with little boys who are diagnosed, they display ADHD symptoms.
“But then in school, he started to regress in terms of he couldn’t things that he had been doing.”
You can donate to Make-A-Wish Ireland – here.
Newstalk’s Pat Kenny, Make-A-Wish recipient Missie Humphrey (4 yrs) and Make-A-Wish CEO, Susan O’Dwyer pictured at the launch of Wish Week 2024 for Make-A-Wish Ireland. Pic. Robbie Reynolds