Trivia & Auction Night 2017

About Trivia & Auction Night 2017

Join us for the night of nights on the social calendar. Our evening will be a very special night raising much need funds to help build a better future for Samuel. The evening will start off with trivia mixed with auctions with some spectacular prizes. No trivia experience necessary!

Food and drinks available to purchase (no alcohol is permitted and a non-smoking policy exists in and around this venue.)

In November of 2015, Samuel was looking forward to his upcoming school and amateur swimming club championships. He attended his school disco on the last Friday of the month – running around, having fun with his mates. He was, for all purposes, a bright intelligent boy, fit, healthy, energetic and with the world at his feet. He was struck down with a rare neurological condition called Transverse Myelitis which, by the Sunday afternoon, was ravaging his spinal cord and parts of his brain stem and which saw him by 7.00 am on the Monday in an induced coma, fully paralysed and on a life support ventilator breathing for him.

Samuel will require long-term two trained people close by to him 24/7. These people will need to be trained in use of the ventilator and trained in the emergency treatment or replacement of the tracheostomy tube (“trache trained”). They will be required to evacuate any oral secretions that will naturally build up. If the ventilator tubing separates from his tracheostomy tube, Samuel is unable to reconnect it to maintain his ventilation. Those close to him will be trained. But they need to sleep – so there will be “strangers” in the home at night and at other times during the day. These trained support workers to assist with this will be provided up until he turns 18 by Children’s Health Queensland (CHQ).

The basic life support implications for Samuel are enormous in themselves but to maximise the quality of Samuel’s life to be on par with others will require new (often expensive) and emerging technologies. Do we want for Samuel to merely exist, or do we want to maximise Samuel’s quality of life and for him to be able to meaningfully contribute to society as a whole? This is the challenge to build a better future for Samuel – and hopefully many others as well.

Campaign for Samuel Incorporated: Building a Better Future