Over €40k raised in four days for ill baby boy

Local GAA club goes 'AllInForÉanna'

An online fundraiser to support a baby boy diagnosed with a rare blood cancer has smashed its target goal by raising more than €40,000 in just four days.

When Éanna Caffrey (19 months) from Garlow Cross near Navan was first taken to hospital by his mum Yvonne, a native of Aughavas in Co Leitrim, no one could have imagined the diagnosis to come.

After all, his doting aunt Sandra Canning describes Éanna as being a “real boy's boy... into everything! Full of life, always smiling, a stocky wee little fella running full pelt all of the time... full of mischief".

The doctor's surgery all of a sudden seemed much smaller on the afternoon of May 18 - not that playful Éanna even noticed the air being sucked from the room, or the worried looks etched on the adult faces around him.

Just hours after blood tests confirmed Éanna had developed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL), he was whisked away by medics to start a three-and-a-half year treatment journey at Crumlin Children’s Hospital.

“It was all so sudden,” Sandra remembers. “When you're dealing with a baby, he's still only a baby, he's almost 19 months now, but when all this started he was only 17 months.”

The first phase of intensive treatment was particularly tough - little Éanna has only spent four nights in his own cot since being diagnosed.

It has taken a toll on his infant body too.

The result is he will now need to learn how to sit, walk and talk again, all-the-while continuing to cope with rigorous rounds of chemotherapy, blood transfusions, lumbar punctures and many other invasive medical procedures.

On top of everything else, Éanna has had to bravely battle multiple infections as well.

At the present time he remains in hospital after the last serious infection attacked his already-weakened immune system over the June Bank Holiday Weekend.

‘Beads of Courage’ is a programme in Crumlin Children’s Hospital, in which sick children are given beads to symbolically represent significant moments in their course of treatment. Even at this early stage, Éanna has earned 90% of these beads, and his loving family now are eagerly awaiting receipt of his ‘Discharge after Lengthy Hospital Stay’ bead.

“It's definitely been a hard few weeks,” comments Sandra who, along with the rest of the family, get near daily updates from Éanna's mum Yvonne and dad Stephen, who grew up in the Dunshaughlin area.

That doctors have been able to get the infection under control in the past few weeks, which has boosted everybody's spirits, but has delayed the start of phase two of Éanna's treatment.

Restrictions

The current circumstances surrounding restrictions on visitation due to COVID-19 have also had an impact.

Éanna's big brother Donnacha, still only aged two-and-half years himself, hasn't seen his sibling since the beginning of June.

Sandra says: “We can't go in so we haven't been able to see Éanna. Yvonne does calls with myself, mum (Breege Brady) and all the rest with us, but it's not the same. We just want to give him a big hug, like any family would.

“Covid doesn't help. It means we can't go give Yvonne a break in the hospital. Her and Stephen are doing that all themselves. We go up at weekends. Another of our sisters (Joan) is up in Dublin, she's in and out, and that's all we're doing, helping them out wherever possible. You'd love to be able to take this all away from Yvonne and Stephen, but we just can't.”

But one incredible positive in this terrible tale came not long after Éanna's condition was first learned about - the community of Aughavas, in particular the local St. Joseph's Ladies GAA club, rallied round the Caffrey and Brady families.

The club, with whom Yvonne and Sandra use to play, set up a GoFundMe page online titled 'AllInFor Éanna' that went live online last Thursday, July 16, hoping of raising as much €40,000.

Éanna's illness meant Yvonne has had to quit working indefinitely. She instead spends much of her days by her son's bedside and, when dad Stephen finishes work in the evening, he goes to be with Éanna, while Yvonne travels back to their home in Meath to spent time with Donnacha.

Afterwards, Yvonne again makes the trip back to Crumlin, meaning the couple travel in excess of 180km daily, and on top of that pay the cost of eight separate tolls.

By Sunday afternoon (July 19) however, the St Joseph's Ladies' GoFundMe page had raised almost €45,000, with more than 1,000 people donating to the Éanna's cause. Stephen's brother Keith has also been involved with the fundraising effort.

Along with easing the financial burden the Caffrey family face, the money raised will also help fund the many aspects incurred in Éanna’s treatment not covered, like private medical therapies such as physio and speech and language to get him back on his feet and talking again.

The St Joseph's Ladies' organising committee have also established a post office account in Carrigallen for anyone not online but wishes to make a donation.

“St Joseph's Ladies are just an unbelievable bunch of girls. There are girls involved in the committee that myself and Yvonne would have played football with, that have come back and helping out. I don't know what we would have done without them,” says Sandra.

“It has just totally blown us away, the support has been amazing. Yvonne and Stephen can't get their heads around it, none of us can, the generosity that's out there, all for this little boy battling illness. People just read the story and the impact of it. We have people are praying for us, cards coming to the house all the time, friends calling, so much, its so heartening,” concludes Sandra.

* To donate to the fund, click here.