'Aoife was a very sick little girl and it was a great comfort to be so close to her'

While tiny Aoife Peppard from Trim battled for life in Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin last year, her family spent ten months in Ronald McDonald house, a home away from home in the grounds of the hospital.
Her mother Michelle says that she will be forever grateful to the charity which kept the family close to their little girl and provided a sense of normality for the family at a very difficult and painful time.

“We held a Christening for Aoife at the hospital and were even able to have a family gathering in Ronald McDonald House.
“We were also able to hold birthday parties for her brothers in it,” Michelle recalls.
Michelle and her husband Patrick will be supporting the Walk4Families event on the 11th September in the Porchfields, Trim, which is a fundraiser for Ronald McDonald House.

Aoife was born in January 2015 with Hypoblastic Left Heart syndrome and underwent open heart surgery at just three days old. She spent the next three and a half months in and out of hospital with infections and other problems and then when she was three and a half months old, she underwent more surgery.
“It is only the right side of her heart that works and after the second surgery she went into heart failure and also had a stroke. She was very ill and spent five weeks in ICU and then several more months in the heart centre,

“We moved into Ronald McDonald House for the second heart surgery. She was a very sick little girl and it was a great comfort to be so close to her,” Michelle says.
In all they spent ten months in Ronald McDonald House and Michelle believes they couldn’t have coped without the support they received there.

“It was a huge help to meet lots of other parents who were in similar situations and we met people we would now call friends.
“There was a strong support network there.”
Michelle and Patrick also have two sons, Daire (5) and Cian (3).

“During he summer the boys were up and down all the time and made a network of friends in the house and then, when they went back to school, they used to come to us at the weekend. Patrick and I took it in turns when she started to get a bit better to stay there.
“It was a real home away from home. It was like an extended family.

“The boys never seemed to have been affected by all that was going on. The house was a great distraction for them,” she says.
Volunteers from various walks of life come into the house during the day to cook meals for the parents, making life a little easier for people in very stressful situations.

Little Aoife was discharged from hospital in March last year and Michelle says she is a good bit stronger, although her heart condition has not changed.
She has been assessed for a heart transplant but is not a good candidate, is on a lot of medication and is peg fed directly into her tummy.
”She has come a very long way. She is a fantastic bubbly little girl and seems to have recovered fully from the stroke. She is meeting all her milestones and interacts with her brothers,” according to Michelle.

Walk4Families is a national 5K Fundraising Walk, which is taking place in various counties all over Ireland. The fundraising initiative aims to raise vital funds for a new Ronald McDonald House that will accommodate 53 families alongside the New National Children’s Hospital when it opens on the grounds of St James’s Hospital in 2020.

Since the house at Crumlin opened in 2004 it has provided in excess of 2,700 families from all over Ireland with accommodation, care and support.
Families can stay for a few days, several weeks or even months so they can be close to their sick child.

To participate in the walk you can register now at https://www.iregister.ie/v2/events/walk4families/  Registration is only €20 per family.  For more information on the walk, you can follow #Walk4Families on Facebook/RMHCDublin | www.rmhc.ie or call Joe Kenny 014560435 to find out more about arranging a walk in your area.

If you cannot attend a #Walk4Families please Text HOUSE to 50300 to donate €4 (Texts cats €4 | Minimum €3.26 to charity | Service provider Like Charity | 076 6805278)

All funds raised from #Walk4Families and Texts goes directly to The Ronald McDonald House Charity, an independent charity run by a Board of Trustees appointed by the charity.