“There’re not many children that can say their mum shaved their head for them!” says Ciara Murphy, a young mother from Farranree, Co. Cork.
Ciara and her husband Ger, who appeared last year on RTE’s Don’t Tell the Bride are parents to 4-year-old Lilly, who has global developmental delay. Ciara has decided to do the extreme hair-over to raise funds for the training of her daughter’s assistance dog. The assistance dog was given to the Murphy O’Dea family by the charity organisation, My Canine Companion. Now an additional €5,000 needs to be raised to train the dog and also provide Lilly with essential therapy to help her learn to walk and speak. Lilly is also believed to have autism, but a formal diagnosis has not yet been made.
“We are living in limbo, but this has given us hope as there have been many reports of assistance dogs bringing children out of their shell and aiding their development,” Ciara told the Evening Echo, “Sometimes I might see that she’s trying to tell me something, and it breaks my heart that she can’t. All I want is to hear what her voice would sound like and see her take her first steps. I firmly believe that will happen and when it does it will be worth every strand of hair.”
Tomorrow evening, 4 April, Ciara will have her head shaved by a stylist from 3 Degrees Hair Design at 10pm at the Old Oak Bar on Oliver Plunkett St.
Despite the difficulty of her daughter’s situation, Ciara and Ger take comfort in the fact that Lilly is happy:
“The only time Lilly gets upset is when she can’t find Mickey Mouse on the telly. She is a very happy child.”
They are clearly a very strong family who work to remain positive. Ciara joked to the paper about all the time and money she’ll be saving on her hair:
“It normally takes me three hours to style my hair since it’s so thick, and I’m going to be saving a lot of money on shampoo,” she laughed. “I wish I could give her my voice and ability to walk but that’s not possible so my hair will have to do.”
“We wanted to donate the hair to a charity for those who have lost their hair, but I won’t be able to as my hair is dyed,” she said.
“Now we are going to keep it in a memory box instead. Hopefully, I will one day be able to show her the photographs and hair. There’s not many children that can say their mum shaved their head for them!”
Donations to ‘Ciara’s Easter Egg-head shave’ can be made online before and after the event here.
To find out more about Lily log on to www.facebook.com/groups/walkwithmedaddy
