Full house for bingo night to raise funds for Yvonne’s treatment
At the bingo party in the Woodford Dolmen Hotel were Sandra Walsh, Clodagh Sinnott, Mark Lawlor and Patrick Coady
THERE was madness, mayhem and bingo at the Woodford Dolmen Hotel recently when an event took place to raise funds for a great cause. Sisters Katie and Emma Holden threw all their power into the night to ensure everyone had great craic so the event not only featured a game of novelty bingo, but also a karaoke session and a DJ.
“We’d a right laugh! We had a great turn out of people. We got a great crowd from Bagenalstown – they’re a great community,” Katie told .
“Big John’s karaoke absolutely made the night, and DJ Tommy was brilliant as well. The two lads made a great combination together. We also had prizes for the bingo, door prizes and 15 prizes for the raffle. It was great.”
Katie and Emma are two of the main drivers of a fundraising campaign for their much-loved cousin, Yvonne Geoghegan. Yvonne (31) is a young woman from Bagenalstown who has been battling a particularly aggressive form of Multiple Sclerosis.
Sadly, she wasn’t even able to make it to the fundraiser in her honour because she wasn’t well enough to attend. Before her diagnosis six years ago, Yvonne was a successful beautician and nail technician, but since then her health has rapidly declined. She is now blind in her right eye, has weakness in her right leg, is extremely fatigued and has severe mobility issues.
She also suffers from terrible pain, has had an attack of neuralgia to her face and said that even walking to the toilet is a trip hazard. She’s now starting to use a wheelchair as she can’t walk unaided, while her home has also been deemed as unsuitable to her needs.
Yvonne is the daughter of Jimmy and Sandra. The family are raising €80,000 for her to get Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) treatment in Mexico. The treatment involves harvesting stem cells from her body, undergoing bouts of chemotherapy and then reintroducing the cells.
In recent months, her health has deteriorated so badly that she fears she’ll be paralysed if she doesn’t take some drastic action soon. A GoFundMe account set up for Yvonne’s treatment has almost €25,000 in it, while a further €3,449 was raised at the bingo night.
“We’re up against a deadline here and we still have another €50,000 to raise. It feels like it’s getting harder to raise it. People are very generous and we’re very grateful, but we need a big push now,” said Katie.
To support Yvonne, please contact the GoFundMe page at ‘yvonne’s hsct journey’.
