After five long years of dreaming of being able to access a playground along with her able-bodied friends, little Taylor Rose Keating finally got her wish on Friday.
The courageous five-year-old has defied the odds, surviving long beyond the two hours doctors initially gave her to live, after her birth.
Taylor Rose, and other children with similar special needs, mixed and played happily with their able-bodied peers and siblings at “Europe’s first-ever indoor all-inclusive playground with a wow factor”, situated on the outskirts of Limerick city.
The Share a Dream Foundation, led by Shay Kinsella, has created this "Dreamland" at Park Point on the Dublin Road – where children of all abilities can play.
Taylor Rose was in awe as she travelled skywards on a special lift to the top of a princess castle and tree house.
A special parent-and-child slide takes users swiftly back to the fun below.
Dreamland, which is free to “special children”, allows all its visitors to access its cartoon-like town, aeroplane, fire station, pirate ship, and toy hospital.
Taylor Rose, who has a rare fatal form of spina bifida, “liked the special sensory room the best”, said her mum Mary Keating.
“For kids like Taylor Rose, they usually go to fun parks with their families and they are left sitting on the sideline while the rest of the kids have fun and play games.
“So, this is great for them to be involved with their friends and their siblings. To have something like this is fantastic. It’ll help her to have more fun in her life, and to help her interact more with other children.”
Against the odds
Explaining further about her daughter’s “life-limiting condition”, Ms Keating said that “when Taylor Rose was forming, part of her neck never closed up so half her brain was exposed.
“A sack of fluid around the brain developed, and the part of the brain that was exposed is the part that’s linked to her breathing and her muscles.
“The doctors didn’t expect her to survive after birth – they actually gave her about two hours to survive – but she decided against that.
“We chose for her to come home to pass away. They gave her two weeks at the most, but Taylor Rose decided she wasn’t giving up and she kept going. She had major surgery when she was four months old.
“We were in Temple Street for 11 weeks, and she spent her first Christmas in hospital after doctors placed a shunt in her brain on Christmas Eve to stop fluid building in her brain.
“ Ever since she has been battling forward, and hopefully she will keep battling forward.
“Doctors are actually now learning from her because she is now the only surviving case,” Ms Keating said.
Without knowing how much time they have left, mother and daughter keep going, “taking each day as it comes”, and “hoping for the best”.
“I’m so proud of her, she is the most amazing gift I ever got in life,” Ms Keating said.
Shay Kinsella, founder of Share a Dream Foundation, who for the last 25 years has been creating magical journeys for children like Taylor Rose, made an emotional call for continued support from the public: “We rely on fundraising completely, we don’t get any support from the Government.
“We will really need people’s help to keep this going. I cry a lot, but I also smile a lot, seeing what our work means to these kids. All they want is to be included.”