Brave 11-year old Jamie Murphy has travelled to London for the second time to undergo an operation to correct a curve in her spine on Saturday at Great Ormonde Street Hospital in London.
Jamie arrived in London with her parents, Emer and Peter, and her Granny, Mary O’Brien and aunt Triona at lunchtime yesterday, and the family had a big surprise planned. Jamie attended the West End show Hairspray just hours after she arrived, and afterwards she was to meet with the cast and crew of the famous production.
Jamie, who suffers from spina bifida and scoliosis which she has had since she was born, is due in Great Ormonde Street hospital this morning at 9am where doctors will carry out tests to see how strong Jamie is and how her body will cope with the operation. She has such a severe curvature that her spine is compressing her internal organs, making it difficult for her to breathe.
Jamie was due to have the life-saving treatment in July this year, but she had to return home from London following tests by the hospital that deemed her unfit to undergo the operation. Her family learned that the operation would have been life threatening had it gone ahead.
However, since this Jamie has been receiving Bi-Pap treatment, which is a specialist treatment that supplied her with larger amounts of oxygen than her lungs normally take in and increased her lung capacity over time. Jamie’s mother Emer is hopeful that this treatment will have made Jamie stronger for the operation.
Speaking from their hotel room in London yesterday before they headed off for Hairspray, she said, “Jamie is in great form. She has had the Bi-Pap treatment and her lungs are now as strong as they can be and so the operation has to go ahead now one way or the other. We just hope for the best now. She is built up as much as she can be so the operation has to happen.”
Emer was excited about taking Jamie to Hairspray as she said it would be a big treat.
“She knows there is a treat for her but she doesn’t know what it is. We didn’t think that we would get to the show but through the help of the Share a Dream Foundation, it’s happening. I had told them that they could give it to another child as I didn’t think we were going to make it, but we travelled here a day earlier than planned as a result and now it is happening. I think she will be just thrilled.”
The issue of Jamie’s operation has been raised in the Dáil as members are furious that a child with a life-threatening condition such as Jamie’s is not being treated as an emergency operation. Jamie was on a waiting list along with hundreds of other patients with similar conditions at Crumlin St Hospital in Dublin but she had also been told that she might not survive long enough to get the treatment.
After meeting Jamie, Great Ormonde Street doctors instructed that she have the operation as soon as possible. A secret benefactor has pledged to pay for the treatment. Tomorrow is D-day for the little girl and her family and thousands of people around the country will be praying that the procedure is a success.
