Eleven-year-old Jamie Murphy from Graiguenamanagh, Co Kilkenny, who has just come through lifesaving surgery in London’s Great Ormond St Hospital, was horrified that her hero Tommy Walsh was ‘attacked’ during the All-Ireland final.
While coming out of the anaesthetic after the seven-hour operation she said to her mother, “I’m going to get whoever it was that hit Tommy,” before she fell back asleep!
Jamie underwent the marathon surgery on Saturday morning and has surprised all the surgeons and consultants by her quick recovery.
“She has surpassed everybody’s expectations,” said Jamie’s mother Emer. “She was off the life support after just 24 hours and in a respiratory bed in a ward, which was amazing as we had been prepared for her to be in ICU for much longer than this.
“Yesterday [Wednesday] was her first time moving out of bed and into a wheelchair and it is completely different to before. She needs very special care and we need to learn how to hold her and move her again now that her spine has been straightened.”
Jamie suffers from spina bifida and scoliosis and her spine had been pressing down on her vital organs in a life threatening manner. She has been on a waiting list for Crumlin Children’s Hospital but she was not classed as an urgent case
However doctors at Great Ormond Street said that Jamie would not have lived beyond Christmas had she not received the operation when she did.
“We are just so relieved that she has finally had the surgery. It is the most important thing. The care she is getting here is just fantastic — the doctors and nurses are so good. Everyone is being brilliant and Jamie has never been so straight, she can hardly believe it herself. But she is also quite sore now and still very tired. But we know she is coming around because she is starting to order us about again, which is great,” said Emer.
Before Jamie was admitted to the hospital she was taken on a surprise trip to see hit musical Hairspray with the Share a Dream Foundation.
This was a massive surprise for her — particularly when she was given the best seat in the house in a private box. And it didn’t end there. When the show ended the cast and crew came to meet her —Link, Tracy, Turnblat, and Penny joined her in her “box” and treated her like royalty with hugs, kisses, and presents. One of Jamie’s favourites, Link, even gave Jamie a kiss and Jamie screamed with delight, “I’ll never wash my face again!”
Jamie will now spend at least two weeks in hospital recovering and she will possibly need to be stretchered to the airport by ambulance and received in Dublin by ambulance when she gets to come home.
However Jamie is more concerned that her old clothes don’t fit her and she is anxious to go on a shopping trip to deck herself out in some new finery before she gets home.
“This won’t happen before we go home but she will look forward to that day. We have a long, long road ahead of us but she is here with us and that it the most important thing,” said Emer.
The benefactor who has generously funded Jamie’s operation has been in regular contact with the family and they have shared tears and laughter over recent days. The family is very grateful to the benefactor and to everyone who had thought and prayed for Jamie.
