By Deron Hamel
When Rick McGraw set out to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) to buy state-of-the-art laser surgery equipment, he had a goal of raising $300,000. Since completing the climb Aug. 1, he has raised $332,000, and the money is still coming in.
Proceeds from McGraw’s climb are being used by SickKids to buy a laser surgery machine that will allow less invasive brain operations for children affected by epilepsy and cancer. Laser surgery with this machine will allow surgeons to operate on children using only small incisions and reduce time spent in hospital recovering.
SickKids will be the first Canadian hospital to have access to this technology.
McGraw, who has also climbed mountains in Mexico and Peru, says the decision to conquer Kilimanjaro came after seeing an advertisement for an expedition sponsored by Medcan, a Toronto health organization.
The Toronto resident liked the challenge of climbing Africa’s tallest mountain, but wanted to up the ante.
“Climbing Kilimanjaro was not on my bucket list, but it got on my bucket list very quickly, and I thought I could do something to make it more meaningful, so that’s how I ended up connecting with SickKids and identifying a project I thought was worthy,” McGraw tells Voices of Epilepsy.
“In the end, (raising money to buy the equipment) turned out to be more important to me than doing the climb.”
McGraw and his wife, Gayle, are matching every dollar donated to buy the equipment.
When McGraw decided to raise money for SickKids, he contacted the hospital and was provided with options of how money raised through his climb could benefit children. The laser surgery machine piqued McGraw’s interest because of the way it can improve quality of life for children with epilepsy and brain cancer.
“I was told (the hospital) had been lobbying the government for years to get this technology, but to this point the government has refused to pay for it,” McGraw says.
“(With this technology) the accuracy is increased. Some of the issues with epilepsy can occur in the centre of the brain, and there’s no way to access that with a scalpel, but with this equipment they will be able to.”
The climb to Kilimanjaro’s 19,341-foot summit took seven days and was physically gruelling but emotionally satisfying, McGraw says.
McGraw says he’s thankful for the support his fundraising project has received.
“In the end, we had 280 donors, which is quite amazing,” he says.
Click here if you would like to make a donation in support of McGraw’s climb.
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