Bumbleance gives Shaye a welcome buzz on way to hospital 

With Shaye spending lots of time hospitalised in Limerick and Crumlin, the family is among many nationwide who use Bumbleance, the interactive children’s ambulance service

Shaye Collins. 

Before discovering during pregnancy there was something wrong with her baby, mum-of-four Veronica Collins had a dream this child wouldn’t come home with her for a while. “But in the dream, I also knew he’d be fine. I got the sense he’d be a fighter,” says Co Clare-based Veronica.

Shaye – now an energetic four-year-old with “a mad mop of curly hair” – was found to be anaemic. Doctors feared he’d die in utero. Instead, born at 30 weeks with a “really bad rash”, he was diagnosed with a rare immune disorder HLH (Haemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis): specialised white blood cells become over active, causing severe inflammation and damage to tissues, such as the liver, spleen, bone marrow. Shaye’s bone marrow is affected and, when he was born, Veronica and husband Eoin understood his condition “was more than likely incompatible with life”.