Ronald McDonald House Charities provides free 'home away from home' accommodation at specialist children's hospitals across the UK, enabling families to stay close to their child and maintain a degree of normal family life.

Here's my story of why my wife and I had use of this accommodation:

Almost 3 years ago my youngest son Ellis was born. At 9 days old he wasn't feeding and was becoming increasingly lathargic so we took him to the doctors and were told to take him to the hospital to be checked over. This then started the most stressful and emotional 48hours of our lives. We were sent to Noah's Ark Children Hospital in Cardiff. We watched while the nurses tried to take the standard observation readings; heart rate, blood oxygen concentration etc with various different monitors and probes not giving any readings. They finally got a heart rate reading. It was at this point that the doctor pressed the alarm button and suddenly the room was full of nurses and a crash trolley. His heart rate was over 270 bpm. They tried a range of different methods to bring his heart rate back under control; eventually having to keep increasing the dosage of the medicene until it eventually worked. He was then sent to the cardiac ward for more scans and observations. For the rest of the day and overnight his heart would continue to jump into SVT roughly every 30mins, setting all the alarms off. Each time the wonderful nurses and doctors were able to bring his heart rate back under control. My wife and I sat all night in the chair next to his bed, exhausted but unable to sleep. The following morning we were told that he was going to be sent to PICU to be put into an induced coma until they could stabalise his heart rate and stop his heart going back into SVT. After lots of tears and long waits we were able to sit next to his bed in PICU.

That evening we feared having to leave our tiny baby in hospital and go home. The amazing nurses told us that we could have a room at the Ronald McDonald house. We needed to eat and get some sleep. Physically and emotionally tired we walked literally across the road from Noah’s Ark to the amazing Ronald McDonald house.

Over the next 10 days we juggled family life; looking after a 3 year old, Rowan, who couldn't understand where his younger brother and parents were, along with life in PICU. Thankfully we were able to have a room within a 5min walk of Ellis, so that each night, when we could no longer stay awake by his side, we had somewhere comfortable we could stay. I cannot stress how much this helped us. It gave us somewhere quiet and separate from the beeping machines to recover ready for the next day. It allowed us somewhere to have breakfast and cook meals. It also allowed us to rotate and look after Rowan and gave us somewhere separte yet close to Ellis in PICU where we could play with Rowan and be 'normal' without feeling the guilt of leaving Ellis' side.