A persistent fever landed nearly three-year-old Wade Butter in hospital right before his birthday in 2023.

“We kind of sensed that something was wrong and called his family doctor. And that’s when everything started,” said Nichole Fink, Wade’s mom.

A trip to their local hospital in Cambridge, Ont., confirmed the family’s worst nightmare.

“The pediatrician started running some tests, and he was cancer positive,” Wade’s father Adam Butter recalled. “We just entered a blur from there.”

“It’s not something that you would ever think is going to happen to your child,” Fink said.

Things moved quickly as doctors determined Wade would need specialized care elsewhere. Fink and Wade were transported by Ornge Ambulance to McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton. Butter followed behind in the family van. Their other son John stayed with family.

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The family takes about an hour to get from their house to the hospital. It’s a drive they have repeated dozens of times as they continue to navigate Wade’s cancer diagnosis.

Part of their journey included a 17-day stay at the Ronald McDonald House, just a few blocks from the hospital. Butter said receiving that support was critical for their family.

“We could get, you know, a square meal a day there if not two,” Butter said. “It really just let us focus more on being parents to Wade, being parents to John, so that the burden of life, just like daily chores, cooking and cleaning was lifted from us.”

But the reality across Canada is there’s not enough space to accommodate everyone. Last year roughly 18,000 families stayed on their properties. But president and CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities, Kate Horton, said on average four out of five families still cannot get a room when they need one.

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“We are turning just too many families away from Ronald McDonald Houses based on lack of space or no available program option,” Horton said.

As a result, many families must drive long distances in order to be with their children while undergoing treatment or during hospital stays. RMHC data suggests given that there are only 16 specialty children’s hospitals serving the entire country, travel is unavoidable for 65 per cent of Canadian families who live outside a town with a children’s hospital.

“Families travelled, if you can believe it, 5.2 million km to be close to their sick child, which is over 130 times around the world,” Horton said.

The organization is calling on Canadians to support the charity, as they work towards the ambitious goal of doubling their footprint over the next five years.

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Fink knows the power of being able to step away and take care of yourself for an hour or two while balancing the needs of a sick child.

“Just being able to get away from the madness of what’s going on in the hospital and take some time for yourself, I think, got me through a lot of very challenging days,” Fink said.

The challenging days for the family are not over. Wade is still in treatment, and the family continues to make trips back and forth between the hospital and their home — a long drive they know all too well.

At any point, the family knows things might change, and they could wind up needing Ronald McDonald House once again. But for now, Wade’s parents say they are proceeding with caution and hope.

“You can’t think about anything else except getting through today and just wishing, really wishing that goes well,” Butter said.