Hattie Ligons, 74, holds great-grandson Martrevion Ligons, 12, inside their room at Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth on Oct. 19, 2023. The Ligons family has been staying at the facility for about five months. Martrevion was diagnosed with cancer when he was 2 months old, Hattie said. Martrevion now is battling his third bout with the disease and recently received a bone marrow transplant.
Fort Worth Ronald McDonald House seeing extended stays, supply shortages post-COVID
by Cristian ArguetaSoto, Fort Worth Report November 22, 2023
Hattie Ligons, 74, wakes up, gets ready for her day and straightens up the room while her great-grandson lies in bed.
After her morning gets started, Martrevion begins his day inside their Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth suite, which has been home for the past five months.
Post-pandemic the Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth has seen longer stay times, an influx of guests and more one-night stays, all of which has led to a supply shortage.
The 12-year-old, who is battling cancer for the third time, gets ready for school at 11 a.m. Tuesday through Thursday. On Mondays, he gets blood work done or has his patch changed. On Fridays he has his dressing changed and gets blood work done.
If there is an issue with the blood work, Ligons said, he spends two-and-a-half hours getting an infusion.
“After his infusion, you wouldn’t believe it. You wouldn’t believe this is a little boy that has cancer,” Ligons said. “The one way that you could tell is because he don’t have hair but otherwise he’s, I guess, a typical 12-year-old.”
Ligons and Martrevion were referred to the Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth by their social worker at Cook Children’s Medical Center, Ligons said. The lodging includes working utilities, food, including one hot meal a day, and if needed, transportation via taxi vouchers.
From Jan. 1, 2022 through Sept. 30, 2022, the Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth supported 283 families with an average stay time of 26 days. For the same time period in 2023, that number has jumped to 446 families and an average stay time of 44 days, Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth CEO Jennifer Johns said.
Johns said they’re in a position they’ve never been in before in terms of shortages. The organization is going through so many more supplies than they ever have, she added.
Hattie Ligons, 74, washes her hands in her Ronald McDonald House suite Oct. 19, 2023. Ligons prepares to make her 12-year-old great-grandson some rice, a favorite food of his. Ligons and Martrevion Ligons live together in a first-floor suite inside the nonprofit lodging in Fort Worth’s medical district. (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report) Hattie Ligons, 74, grabs a bag of rice from a shelf inside her Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth suite on Oct. 19, 2023. Ligons and Martrevion Ligons, her great-grandson, have lived at the facility for about five months, she said. Martrevion recently received a bone marrow transplant while he battles with cancer for the third time. “I don’t know what I would do without these people. They are outstanding. I wouldn’t think of going anywhere else,” Hattie said. (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report) Hattie Ligons, 74, puts rice in a pot for her great-grandson, Martrevion Ligons, 12, on Oct. 19, 2023. The two live together while the 12-year-old recovers from a bone marrow transplant. “I love to cook and we’re just now getting my grandson back in the habit of eating because he wasn’t eating. He weighed, up until now, 58 pounds and he’s 12 years old,” Hattie said. “You go down to the locker room and see what they have for lunch. If you tell the people what he wants, they got it.” (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report) Martrevion Ligons, 12, plays Fortnite, a video game, inside his Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth suite Oct. 19, 2023. His great-grandmother, Hattie Ligons, cooks for him. Martrevion is battling cancer for the third time, Hattie said. When Martrevion was two months old, his parents found a lump in his throat that turned out to be cancerous. While in the hospital, Hattie called the hospital to check on him and she was informed he had not been visited in two or three days. “That’s all I needed to hear. I became his caretaker and have been with him since,” she said. (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report) Shelves look empty inside the Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth pantry on Oct. 19, 2023. A supply shortage, increase in guest stay times and influx of families had pinned the nonprofit into a corner it’s never been in before, according to CEO Jennifer Johns. “We go through 1,000 to 1,500 individually wrapped snacks a week,” Tonja Sparks, the volunteer services manager at the facility, said. “The amount that we go through and the amount that comes in is not the same. The cereal I have now, I’ve got enough cereal to last five days.” (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report) Martrevion Ligons, 12, plays a video game inside his Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth room on Oct. 19, 2023. Ligons recently underwent a bone marrow transplant and has stayed at the lodging nonprofit with his great-grandmother for about five months. The top three diagnoses for families staying at the Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth are cardiology, with 118 families this year, oncology, with 79 families, and premature births, with 93 families, CEO Jennifer Johns said. “They’re here for serious situations with their child. We want them to just focus on their kiddos and not have to worry about where they’re going to get breakfast,” Johns said. “We try to take care of all of those needs so that they don’t have to worry about it.” (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report)
Ligons will forever be grateful for the Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth, she said. “We (are) praying and hoping that this is it,” she said.
“This is home away from home because when I say, ‘Well, I’m fixing to go home,’ what I mean is Ronald McDonald House. This is home for me right now,” Ligons said. “Until they release him to go home, this is home.”
Cristian ArguetaSoto is the community engagement journalist at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him by email or via Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
