Shane Lowry donates €10,000 to help young Irish boy get life-saving treatment
The Join Together for Joey fundraiser has gone viral this week with Offaly GAA and now Shane Lowry lending their support
Irish European Ryder Cup golfer Shane Lowry has donated €10,000 to the Join Together For Joey fundraiser aiming to help a young Offaly boy get life-saving treatment in the US.
Offaly native Lowry took to social media to urge others to donate anything they could while Joey's family thanked Shane for his very generous personal donation to the GoFundMe.
The fundraiser is now nearing its €330,000 target with €300,000 raised so far. Joey's parents Natalie and Tommy have been updating people on Joey's story on their 'Join Together For Joey' social media accounts.
In their GoFundMe fundraiser, Joey's parents, from Tullamore, explain that the youngster, whose favourite song to dance to is 'Oh My Johnny' by Tullamore band Chasing Abbey, could be saved by a very expensive surgery.
"There is a Meso Rex Shunt/Bypass surgery that can be done for Joey. This surgery is available in Chicago and all in will cost €330,000, where we will have to stay anywhere between 8-12 weeks from pre-op to post-op. It is a 5 hour surgery that connects the superior mesenteric vein to the left portal vein using an internal jugular vein," they explained.
"This procedure bypasses the obstruction and restores normal portal flow into the liver. This can restore Joey’s system back to normal function. It would be both life saving and life changing and give him his life back."
The parents added: "The best outcome of the surgery is to operate on a system that has not had any bleeding yet i.e. a system that is not under too much pressure. And we are against the clock because the sooner we get this done for Joey we immediately eliminate the threat to his life of bleeding or another septic event.
"He won't be held back in his development and catch up where he has missed. His spleen will go back to a normal size, where his white blood cells and platelets will go back to normal levels, which his risk of serious infections will reduce and allow him to fight infection normally.
"Without this surgery for Joey, there is a 40% risk of death in the first episode of bleeding. Without this surgery he is at risk of a third sepsis episode and nobody knows how the third one would affect his body this time or if he would survive it.
"If this surgery is completed in a healthy system (not bleeding) that Joey currently has now, there is a 90% chance of success and restoring Joey’s system and curing him of all other symptoms. Giving Joey this chance now in the next 6 months would change his life forever.
"And as parents, we want Joey to go to preschool in September with his cousins, play football with his brother Jordi, dance in the kitchen with his sister Molly and simply live his best life that we can only hope and dream for if he gets this surgery."