{"id":845080,"date":"2025-05-01T20:12:20","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T01:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/so-many-memories-a-wish-allows-parents-to-capture-memories-of-critically-ill-children\/"},"modified":"2025-05-01T20:12:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T01:12:20","slug":"so-many-memories-a-wish-allows-parents-to-capture-memories-of-critically-ill-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/so-many-memories-a-wish-allows-parents-to-capture-memories-of-critically-ill-children\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018So many memories\u2019 -A-Wish allows parents to capture memories of critically ill children"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Make-A-Wish wishes allow parents to capture memories of their critically ill children, a parent has said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

All this week Newstalk<\/em> is teaming up with Make-A-Wish<\/a> <\/strong>to raise money for children with critical illness.<\/p>\n

Make-A-Wish creates life-changing wishes<\/a><\/strong> for children with critical illness.<\/p>\n

Ruth McDonnell is the mother of Ruair\u00ed and Fionn who had the same genetic illness, Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), and both have been granted a wish by Make-A-Wish<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Fionn\u2019s illness was caught early and thankfully he is doing well after a long and difficult journey.<\/p>\n

Sadly, Ruair\u00ed passed away in 2022, at the age of nine.<\/p>\n

Ruair\u00ed\u2019s wish was to have sensory equipment and Fionn\u2019s wish was to have football goals.<\/p>\n

Both boys thoroughly enjoyed the donations they received from Make-A-Wish \u2013 especially as Ruair\u00ed\u2019s sensory equipment brought him and his siblings joy through his final months.<\/p>\n

On The Pat Kenny Show<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, Ms McDonnell said because of the sensory equipment she has \u201cso many memories\u201d of the boys together.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake-A-Wish came into our lives in March 2020 – Ruair\u00ed 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat’s so amazing about Ruair\u00ed 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ms McDonnell also encouraged parents to trust their gut and contact their GP if they\u2019re noticing even small changes within their child which seem troublesome<\/p>\n

\u201cI would just say trust your instinct and trust your gut as a mother or as a parent,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was just little things with Ruair\u00ed but yet 90% of the time he was still himself, it was just little things were changing ever so slightly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then in school, he started to regress in terms of he couldn’t things that he had been doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can donate to Make-A-Wish Ireland \u2013 here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Newstalk\u2019s Pat Kenny, Make-A-Wish recipient Missie Humphrey (4 yrs) and Make-A-Wish CEO, Susan O\u2019Dwyer pictured at the launch of Wish Week 2024 for Make-A-Wish Ireland. Pic. Robbie Reynolds<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 Ruair\u00ed and Fionn who had the same<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":845081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43291,31845],"tags":[97891,13234],"class_list":{"0":"post-845080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-so","8":"category-memories","9":"tag-so","10":"tag-memories"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}