Celtic fans; the great enablers

Today’s blog has been prepared by the guys running the incredible Walk with Shay campaign, and has been approved by Shay’s family. Take a moment to read over it.

As Celtic fans, we are incredibly lucky that we have people doing good things in our name, people who make it easy for us to get involved in changing a life. We should be grateful we can play a small part in making a profound difference to a young life.

Here’s the article:

Many of you will already be aware of Shay McGinlay, the little 3-year-old Bhoy from Livingston who has Cerebral Palsy; here is Shay’s story:

“Hello, my name is Shay my story begins when I was born at 42 weeks weighing a healthy 7lb11oz. When I was born I was starved from oxygen for 40 minutes which led to me being brain damaged. I was transferred to neonatal intensive care unit at Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh where I was cooled with a cooling treatment to reduce swelling to my brain.

Hours and days passed that my mummy & daddy worried. They were told that I might not survive and to expect the worst. I spent 3 weeks in intensive care before being transferred back to St John’s children’s ward.

I stayed in the children’s ward for 7 weeks where I got stronger and into a stable routine to go home. I was discharged on 24th of August 2013 and got to go home with my mummy and daddy. I proved all the doctors wrong.

I have grown stronger since I have been home but I sometimes struggle to gain weight and have to have special high calorie milk to make sure I gain enough weight. I suffer from developmental delay which means I can’t sit up, talk, walk or play like other kids my age can. I receive physiotherapy and speech and language therapy due to my evolving quadriplegic cerebral palsy. I also suffer from epilepsy and suffer from seizures.

I am now in need of further treatment for my cerebral palsy which is not available on the NHS. Me and my mummy and daddy would like to ask for your continued support to help us raise funds for my therapy. This costs around £6000 per year and could help me eat, sit up and maybe even walk on my own in the future. I would love to be able to do these things and play with all my cousins and get to achieve as much as I can from living life with cerebral palsy…

A number of CQNers and friends have been working tirelessly since September 2014 to help raise money to support my ABR therapy via the sale of CQN badges and the fabulous Last Man Standing competition, which many of you I know have taken part, as well as other fundraising initiatives and donations. These efforts have raised a magnificent £10,500 towards my treatment.

Together with own family and friends fundraising, we have now raised enough to pay for the first two years’ treatment, and partially fund the third year’s treatment. I cannot thank you enough for helping me get this far.

The treatment to date has been very beneficial and this has helped to hold my head up better and develop part of a neck, but this is a very slow process. Please see my picture below.

I am also eating and sleeping better, but recently l gave my parents a wee scare on holiday in Tenerife, and had a seizure, ending up in hospital for a couple of days. I had not had a seizure for two years. Luckily thanks to the kind doctors and nurses I was ok and managed to get home on time. Hospital food is rubbish in Spain too :-)

The third year’s treatment is due to commence in November 2016, and this is when I get my next assessment.  My mum and dad is also looking into alternative treatment and equipment that may be required to help give me achieve a better way of life and allow me to progress. One day, I hope to walk.  Thank you for walking with me so far!”

The campaign to support Shay has now been consolidated and formalised into a campaign called “WalkWithShay”.

The WalkWithShay campaign was launched two weeks ago on twitter and now has 867 followers. You can follow us @walkwithshay. We can also be contacted by email at above- walkwithshay@yahoo.com .  We will shortly set up a facebook page and will also keep you up to date across the football blogs, including CQN.

We are in the process of setting up a bank account.  We also have a crowdfunding account set up to allow us to accept credit card and overseas payments. You can also make normal donations to this account until the bank account is set up.

JustGiving: Walk with Shay

The campaign team have some genuinely unique Celtic memorabilia and these items will either be raffled or put to a suitable event to be auctioned. The team have managed to achieve the amazing feat of getting the last 11 Celtic Club Captains to sign 2 Tops with 1 of these being made available via a raffle (launch date of the raffle still to be announced) so that all supporters will have the opportunity to own such a unique item. These tops span 53 years of Celtic history.

In addition, a very kind CQNer has drawn all club captains in a fantastic black and white drawing.  You will therefore all get the chance to purchase a print of this very special drawing in time for Christmas.

Please follow @walkwithshay for all updates and news.

If you want to help us by donating a prize, running an event or simply wishing us well or making a donation, then drop us an email at walkwithshay@yahoo.com Please also do not forget that you can also join in on our Last Man Standing competition which will continue to support Shay. LMS9 starts in a few weeks’ time (once LMS8 is won!). Watch this space on CQN and twitter for further announcements.

Thank you and please help share our campaign.

The Walkwithshay Campaign Team

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