Will you help provide the very best care for patients like Deiric?

Your kindness will help bring much-needed new chemo chairs to the Mater…

If you or someone you love has ever gone through chemotherapy, you know it’s a double-edged sword —

It kills the cancer cells as they multiply, but it can also make you feel awful.

Chemotherapy affects everyone differently, but some patients feel nauseous, uncomfortable and exhausted.

And every chemo session lasts between 4 and 10 HOURS.

My name is Sandra, and I’ve been a nurse on the Mater’s Cancer Ward for 24 years now.

I’m writing today to ask for your help to replace our tired, worn-out, decade-old chemotherapy chairs for people battling cancer.

Please, will you give your gift today and help make our chemo patients as comfortable as they can possibly be while they receive this life-saving treatment?

Your kindness can make a vital difference for patients fighting cancer…

Let me explain the difference your kindness can make to people like Deiric.

Once a month for over six years now, Deiric has been coming to us for his monthly chemotherapy treatments.

I’m always pleased to see his friendly face. He’s such a positive guy. Honestly, there’s not a bad bone in his body.

But at 73 years old, Deiric’s mobility is declining. He’s waiting on hip surgery, walks with a stick, and struggles in our old, unforgiving chairs.

I wish I could recline his chair so he could rest during his treatment.

You see, these chairs we’re desperate to replace have been in near constant use — day in, day out — for 12 years now.

State of the art Chemo Chairs

And let’s just say they’ve seen better days…

The seats, once plump, are now flat as pancakes. The leather is cracked and peeling. And they’re rigid, so patients who are feeling uncomfortable or feeling the side-effects of their chemo can’t even lie down for a little relief.

Each new chemo chair costs €1,800, and we need 10 of them.

Now I know what you might be thinking… that’s an expensive chair!

But for our chemo patients, through the most punishing hours of all, they’re worth their weight in gold.

However much you feel you can contribute right now — your kindness will make a difference to people on our cancer ward every single day for many years to come here at the Mater.

Please, will you give today and make patients like Deiric as comfortable as they can possibly be while they’re fighting for their lives?

These chairs are not a luxury…

They’re essential to providing the kind of care you’d want for your loved one if ever – heaven forbid — they needed chemo to save their life.

Your kindness today can help provide for 10 new chemo chairs that will:

…Recline so that patients who are feeling sick and exhausted or who have wounds from their cancer struggle can lie down when it all gets too much.

…Rise at the touch of a button so that frail, fragile and elderly cancer patients can stand unaided without needing a nurse to lift them up.

…Provide comfort and full-body support capable of cradling every patient — from a 6ft 7 man to a teenager struggling with leukaemia.

Please, will you rush your gift today and help make every chemo patient as comfortable as they can possibly be through the longest and most punishing hours of all?

People are living so much longer with cancer now. It’s a wonderful thing.

I met Sarah here on our ward around 10 years ago.

She was receiving chemo for breast cancer, and our little ones were around the same age — 7 and 8 at the time.

We’d chat about them like any mothers would while Sarah was hooked up to the IV bag — powerful medicine coursing through her veins as she fought to watch her little girl grow up.

You’d have admired her courage so much.

Sarah beat her cancer. But now our children are teenagers revising for their Leaving Certs, and Sarah is back here…

Diagnosed with cancer for a second time, Sarah must now once again face those endless hours in our chemotherapy chairs — the very same chairs she sat in all those years ago when she was battling cancer number one.

You know, if there was one person who made me realise how urgently our tired, worn-out, old chemo chairs need replacing — it’s lovely Sarah.

If you believe that Sarah, Deiric, and others fighting for their lives deserve to be as comfortable as they can possibly be during their treatments… please will you give today?

If you aren’t able to give right now, I understand. But if you can, your kindness will make more of a difference than you know.

Thank you for your generosity, your compassion, and for being the heart and soul of the Mater,

Nurse Sandra

Senior Nurse, Mater Cancer & Haematology Ward
The Mater Hospital