Carla's Story
My family and I have a close association with New Zealand’s first Ronald McDonald Family Retreat.
I’m a proud mum to three hormonally-charged, zit-challenged teenagers. We’ve had our challenges as a family. Nick was born with complex congenital heart defects that have made life a considerable struggle for us all. It’s no easy task to describe to others what having a child with extra needs is like for a family.
As one of seventy percent of families whose child’s heart condition is undetected in utero, we were in for a rude shock when Nick was born. It wasn’t long though, before we fell in love with him, happily pushing the dream of the perfect child we thought we were having away forever. We had a whole new language to learn, a specialist medical field to become proficient in, and a health system to navigate.
It wasn’t an easy ask. Nick endured procedure after procedure, over and over again. I lost count of the number of times we thought we were going to lose him. Mum took to wearing dark sunglasses on the ward to try to hide her tears. Nick and I went to Greenlane Hospital in Auckland a total of nine times before Nick’s sixth birthday, three times for open heart surgery.
I’d grown up in a low income family with my mum managing the finances. When it came to getting by on a shoestring, I’d learned from The Master. My children and I have always had enough to scrape through, but our holidays have always been restricted to low budget camping trips in the cheapest, most basic DOC sites. We love our camping trips and have a great deal of fun, but we’d often thought how nice it would be not to have to take such a huge pile of camping gear, or struggle to pitch a tent after a long drive.
Due to being on Warfarin, an anticoagulant drug, and bleeding like a stuck pig at the slightest provocation, some of Nick’s mosquito bites have taken two years to heal properly. And we’ve lost count of the number of torches we’ve lost down long drops. Imagine our excitement last July when the children and I got to stay at the Rotorua Family Retreat!
First of all, it was winter. We’d never holidayed in winter before. We could touch the walls without letting the water through. Nothing got damp. We could stand up straight and still have headroom. We didn’t need sleeping bags.
Everything we needed was already there! For the first time we weren’t squished into our small car full of camping gear! And because it seemed perfectly fitting after all those trips to Greenlane Hospital together, we took my mum with us.
We’d been kept in the loop throughout the planning, consent and building process, so we had a fair idea that the Family Retreat was going to be very nice. And it was! Every little thing had been carefully thought out, cupboards and drawers stocked with every conceivable need.
The boys loved all the electronic gadgets – the security gates, the cool electric windows, the massive TV and stereo system. The lakeside view was gorgeous. Nick loved the box of Captain Underpants books. It was like being in a five star hotel.
What we hadn’t been prepared for though and what meant a vast deal more than the house itself, was the feeling of being totally cared for and supported by Ronald McDonald House Charities, by all of the sponsors, and by the Rotorua community too. So accustomed to coping alone, we felt as if we were enveloped in an enormous bear hug.
We’d open a hall cupboard to find a selection of board games purchased with funds raised by nearby school children. We loved the art on the walls, lovingly designed for the purpose. Attractions staff, when they spied our voucher book and recognised us as a Retreat family, welcomed us warmly. Our friendly host, Rob Parry, showed us around and was a great help.
Going home was very different to our usual post-holiday experience. There was no stench of unwashed teenagers in the enclosed space of the car. Fantastic laundry facilities at the Retreat house meant no mountain of dirty washing to deal with – it was already done. Nothing was filled with sand. We had room in the car to bring home puzzles and books we had bought. Most of all, we were relaxed and refreshed.
Judging by the frequent reminiscing the kids have been doing over the last year, it was certainly a holiday to remember, like nothing we’d ever been able to experience before. To us, the Retreat was like a shelter from the storm of everyday life and we were grateful for its sanctuary. Now, in the course of my support work for Heart Children, I’m always on the lookout for stressed, exhausted and grieving families who’ve had little hope of a family holiday for years. You should see the looks on their faces when I tell them how you’ve made it possible for them too!
We are really grateful to everyone involved for their hard work, their passion, and their commitment to this project, and on behalf of all families of kids with extra needs... Thank you
