372 Wick hospital trips to get son’s blood checked – Thurso couple’s anguish alleviated by community fundraising
A six-year-old Thurso boy’s parents thanked their local Tesco and the Wick hospital for helping their son who suffers from a chronic health condition.
Louize Lowe and Dale Simpson not only thanked the supermarket and staff at Wick General Hospital but also Caithness Health Action Team which organised meetings and fundraising efforts to help with their son’s condition called Conor’s Autoimmune polyglandular syndrome type 1 (APS-1).
“We also want to thank everyone locally who donated. You have no idea what a difference this has made to our lives,” said Louize.
“APS-1 is a genetic disease which is made up of lots of different things. Conor currently has five diagnoses but he’ll keep getting more things wrong with him. He’s just wired up the wrong way so his body fights the good things rather than the bad things.”
His mother says that Conor is quite stable at the moment and attends Miller Academy primary school full-time. He was the first child in Scotland to receive a special medication to help alleviate symptoms of the rare disease.
Louize says that she and Dale had to travel back and forth from Thurso to Caithness General Hospital in Wick where Conor’s blood was checked by staff. “The team at Wick A&E are the most wonderful bunch of people ever – they’ve been absolutely brilliant.
“Since January 2022, we’ve done 372 trips to Wick to get his blood checked. If you quantify that by the number of hours travelling and the amount of time waiting it’s a lot. Dale and I work full-time and you have to work your job around it.”
Tesco Thurso helped raise the £10,000 necessary for an i-STAT analyser machine which allows Conor’s parents to do the blood tests at home. “I cannot even begin to explain the difference this will make,” added Louize.
The Thurso branch of Tesco shared a public post on its Serving our community, Thurso page on Facebook in which it talked of raising money for the “very special and unique little boy”.
The post reads: “So back in March, we held a superhero day to raise funds for our very own superhero, Conor, who suffers from a disease called APS-1 – this causes him to suffer from other chronic illnesses and ultimately can lead to life-threatening symptoms. There are less than 1000 people diagnosed with this worldwide.
“The whole of Group One of Tesco’s stores decided to raise funds which would allow Conor’s mum and dad to purchase, an i-STAT machine [allowing them] to do his bloods at home. [This] would greatly improve the impact these trips have on Conor’s life and education.”
“As a Tesco group, we raised a good amount and, along with a ceilidh arranged by Conor’s mum and dad, the full amount was raised.” The supermarket spokesperson went on to thank all who had helped support the good cause and achieve the “amazing goal”.