Jenny Hannigan
Jenny, Claire, Maddie, Penny & Michelle Run The Great North Run
Fundraising for Martin House Hospice for Children and Young People
Story
Jenny's son Lucas died of Spinal Muscular Atrophy in December 2008 at Martin House Children's Hospice when he was 4 months old
Lucas was born on 4th August 2008 and he was diagnosed with SMA, an infant form of Motor Neurone disease in October 2008, when he was 2 months old.
"At the end of November 2008, Lucas fell ill with a cold. After a week in Airedale hospital, they arranged for an ambulance to take us to Martin House, our local Children’s hospice. Airedale Hospital were so amazing at looking after Lucas, but Martin House was able to give us the space to enjoy being a family, whilst also caring for Lucas. Our last two weeks with Lucas (and the week we spent there after he died) were filled with the most amazing colour and light and I don't think we can ever properly thank the people there for making the most difficult days of our lives so perfect.
When we arrived we were told Lucas had only days to live. His dazzling smiles were gone and he looked pale and tired. But to everyone’s surprise he steadily started to improve, he even came off the oxygen and his smiles returned. We celebrated James’ 3rd birthday there and with the run up to Christmas there were many tree’s to decorate and other siblings for James to play with – he had a ball.
After 2 weeks at Martin House we started to talk about going home and planning for Christmas. Then Lucas died.
It was the middle of the night 8th December the night staff offered to look after Lucas and let us get some sleep. But minutes later the night staff knocked on the door to say that Lucas was having a "blue episode". This wasn’t the first time it had happened and I wasn’t worried until I got to him. He was so pale and breathing so gently. We held him and talked to him and minutes later he had gone.
Throughout his journey, Lucas had made so many decisions for us at times when we didn't know which way to turn. Lucas brought us to Martin House. He chose to keep us there and he chose his time to die. For that we couldn’t be more grateful."
You can read Lucas' story in full here