By KATH GANNAWAY
WHEN CFA volunteers head out rattling their tins for the Royal Children’s Hospital Appeal on Good Friday, they will be doing it for the kids.
Kids like 4-year-old Jaxon Wheeler and Hunter Livesay, 2.
The families have a lot in common as the Mail discovered when their mums met last week to promote the Appeal.
Hunter’s mum, Sam, is Appeal co-ordinator with Hillcrest Fire Brigade.
That role became very much more real when little Hunter was diagnosed with a condition called Pyloric Stenosis at three weeks old.
The condition happens when muscles in part of the lower stomach put pressure on the tube conveying food from the stomach to the bowel.
He couldn’t keep his food down and was back to his birth weight when he was referred to the Children’s Hospital.
“They made the diagnosis within an hour and had an operation to open up the muscle the next day,” Sam said.
Jaxon was diagnosed with a deadly heart condition 22 weeks into mum, Theresa’s, pregnancy.
“The 16 weeks that I knew about the condition was absolutely terrifying,” Theresa said.
Jaxon’s condition, in layman’s terms, is that the right side of his heart didn’t grow.
“One option was to induce at 22 weeks and he would pass away.
“We decided we would give him the best chance we could and he has proven to be a real little trouper with it,” Theresa said.
He was induced at 38 weeks and the first of a series of three surgeries, connecting his blood flow to the lung artery, was done.
Theresa describes the impact on the family as horrendous.
“We try to live as normal a life as we can; it gets hard when he is in hospital.
“It’s scary for all of us, but Jaxon has always been a tough little cookie.
Throughout their ordeals, the women say it’s the Royal Children’s Hospital that has provided the confidence to deal with everything that has been thrown at them.
Sam said there was an enormous sense of relief at having a diagnosis and confidence in the care he received in intensive care.
“There was one nurse to two babies and they were with him 24/7 in the room,” she said.
Sam and her husband Paul will both be on the Hillcrest truck, or door-knocking on Good Friday, and are looking forward to what she says is a great experience with people happy to open their door and give.
Theresa, and Jaxon, will be waiting for the big red fire engine in their street.
Theresa said it’s not just through her own experience that would encourage everyone to support the Appeal.
She said she has seen so many examples of what an amazing hospital it is.
“The surgeons, doctors, nursing staff – what normal people would think the impossible, they do it,”
Theresa urged people to give and to go onto the RCH website to see what the money is spent on.
If you miss your local CFA when they call, call in at your local fire station and make a donation.
