Ronald McDonald House Charities

Full Circle

Julie was a boisterous preschooler, so her parents were shocked to learn that the four-year-old had a serious heart condition. She was diagnosed with atrial septal defect, an incomplete wall between the upper two chambers of her heart. Because her heart couldn’t pump blood efficiently throughout her body, as she grew older, Julie would become easily fatigued and her physical activity would be very limited.

Open heart surgery was recommended when Julie was nine years old. Julie was always the first kid in the neighborhood to shimmy up a tree or tear up the block on her roller skates. As healthy as Julie seemed, her parents knew they had to approve the risky surgery. They didn’t want their full-of-life little girl to endure a future that limited her active lifestyle.

Julie and her family traveled 300 miles from their home in Minot, North Dakota, to the hospital in Fargo. Having her family with her throughout the entire hospitalization made all the difference to Julie.

“My family’s modest financial means would have made a hotel stay very difficult. My mother and I would have to endure the surgery alone,” Julie explains. “Thankfully, this burden was lifted from my family when the Ronald McDonald House in Fargo opened its doors to my family at no cost. My parents and brother were there to support me the whole time.”

Now a mother herself, Julie realizes that her parents must have been terrified for her. But she never sensed it. Their constant, calm presence kept her from being frightened. They encouraged her to work hard in regaining strength and lung capacity, and Julie was released from the hospital in half the time her doctors had estimated.

Julie, now 30, lives in Bismarck, North Dakota, with her husband Don Larson, daughters Ella, 4 and Grace, almost 2, and her dad, Dave Aftem. Julie says that to this day, her family feels a debt of gratitude to RMHC for its help and generosity. Her husband now serves on the Board of the Bismarck Ronald McDonald House, giving back to the organization that means so much to his wife and her family. The caring of Ronald McDonald House Charities has come full circle.

Beating the Odds

Kathleen Rydberg Donlon, 35, is used to beating all the odds. Diagnosed with a rare liver cancer in 1986 when she was 12 years old, Kathleen was never afraid. “Dying was never an option,” she says emphatically. There were only a handful of pediatric hepatoblastoma cases in the United States at the time. Kathleen was one of three who survived.

Within hours of her diagnosis, Kathleen was admitted to the hospital in Los Angeles, more than an hour from the family’s Oxnard, California, home. A hospital liaison told Kathleen’s mother about the nearby Ronald McDonald House. Reluctant to leave her daughter, Kathleen’s mother agreed to give the House a try. Two decades later, she still recalls that feeling of entering a warm, welcoming haven.

Because Kathleen’s tumor encompassed 90 percent of her liver, removing it surgically wasn’t possible. She began experimental chemotherapy. It worked. Four months later, the tumor covered just 20 percent of her liver. Doctors removed almost all of it through surgery, and Kathleen began another four-month course of chemotherapy. She has been in remission ever since. “The doctors saved my life, and so did the Ronald McDonald House,” Kathleen says. “The House was a sanctuary for us. It made it possible for my family to stay close and keep my spirits up. That made my treatment so much easier and much more successful.”

Kathleen’s doctors weren’t optimistic that she’d be able to have children as an adult. She beat those odds, too. Although Kathleen’s daughter, Julia, is now 10 years old, her family still refers to her as ‘the miracle baby.’ Kathleen and her husband Sean don’t take their good fortune for granted. “Every day, I thank God for this child,” Kathleen says.

Giving Back

Misty Brough, 26, brings a special gift to the children and families she helps at the Ronald McDonald House in Cincinnati, Ohio: she’s been there herself.

As the evening manager at the House, Misty is often sought out by guests who need to talk. Recently a teenager going through cancer treatment cried when she shared her feelings about being bald. Misty pulled a photo out of her pocket. “This is me when I was about your age,” she told the girl. “I was bald too, and my brother always told me, ‘People love you for who you are, not for your hair.’” Misty is proud of that photo. The baldness was just one of the battle scars she’d earned the hard way, and she uses them as a positive force in her life.

When she was a freshman in college, Misty had a stroke. Her terrified parents arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah, to find their daughter unresponsive and the doctors bewildered. Misty endured tests and treatments, surgeries, seizures and more strokes. She was diagnosed with a rare auto-immune disease and began intense chemotherapy. Doctors told Misty’s parents that she probably wouldn’t live. Later they were more optimistic: she might live, but she wouldn’t regain much function.

Those first days in the hospital, Misty recalls her parents being utterly depleted. They had nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. “They were running on empty,” she says. “Then they moved to the Ronald McDonald House. All their needs were taken care of, and they were able to concentrate on just giving me love and attention. For me, it was literally a life saver.”

Because of the Ronald McDonald House, Misty’s parents were with her through the entire three months of tests and treatments. And although she faced more chemotherapy, had no hair and could barely walk, Misty was back at college less than a year later.

When she graduated, her parents asked her about her goals. Misty said she saw herself with a big dog, an old truck and a job at a charity. Well, they told her, Ronald McDonald House Charities has given a lot to our family. You should give back to them. Remember, make your life count, and make it something you love.

Misty has embraced that philosophy.