Roscrea rallies behind fundraising campaign for local boy

Roscrea has come out in force to support local boy Mason Fletcher and his family through their difficult journey fighting cancer.

Mason’s Aunt Colette and a committee aimed at raising funds for Mason and his family started a Go Fund Me campaign, which has raised over €30,000 and a Raffle during the recent Taste of Christmas event received phenomenal local support.

The fundraising campaign, called Mason’s Journey will assist Mason and his brother Ryan and his parents, Aideen and David to cope with the daunting financial strains as a result of Mason's illness.

“Mason is in Temple Street hospital at the moment getting a platelet transfusion and hopefully when his levels are up to correct amount they are doing a brain operation to put a shunt in his brain to relieve pressure from the ventricles which was causing vomiting loss of balance and vision and severe headache”, Collette told the Tribune.

On October 2nd, 2020, Mason, aged five, was diagnosed with a mid-brain tumour and two days later, in Temple Street Children’s Hospital, Mason had a tumour resection where surgeons removed 90% of the tumour. They could not remove all the tumour as Mason would be left with severe life altering complications.

Mason was left with severe right and left side weakness on his face, has had to learn how to walk, eat and crawl again with intense Physio, Occupational Therapy input and after six weeks Mason was allowed home for Christmas. Life changed after this. Mason had to endure intense appointments on a 3 monthly basis in Temple Street Children’s Hospital wherein he had numerous brain scans to determine whether the tumour was growing again.

One year after his initial diagnosis, Mason’s parents were informed that the tumour had returned and Mason is undertaking intense Chemotherapy every week in Crumlin Hospital - which will continue for 18 months. This is the only option at present as his medical team fight to stop the tumour from growing to an even more life altering size.

The committee is organising several events in Roscrea and surrounding areas for the Mason's Journey campaign.
The committee have set up a Credit Union Account and people can contribute to the Mason's Journey campaign on the GoFundMe page which can be found by searching for “Mason's Journey Roscrea” on the GoFundMe site.