Murray family to be featured on telethon Saturday night

Related Photos

Adam and Terri Kilgore, with their sons Ryan, Reed and Riley, will extol the virtues of the Ronald McDonald House in Chattanooga, where they stayed after the triplets were born.

Discussion

Welcome to our online comments feature. To join the discussion, you must first register with Disqus and verify your email address. Once you do, your comments will post automatically. We welcome your thoughts and your opinions, including unpopular ones. We ask only that you keep the conversation civil and clean. We reserve the right to remove comments that are obscene, racist or abusive and statements that are false or unverifiable. Repeat offenders will be blocked. You may flag objectionable comments for review by a moderator.

comments powered by Disqus

March 5, 2010

Charles Oliver Dalton Daily Citizen The Dalton Daily Citizen Fri Mar 05, 2010, 07:25 PM EST

CHATSWORTH — When doctors told Terri and Adam Kilgore last year they were going to have triplets, the Chatsworth couple knew there might be some complications.

That’s one reason, Terri Kilgore says, why they chose to have their children at Chattanooga’s T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital, where they knew they would get the highest-quality care.

But when Ryan, Reed and Riley were born six weeks early on Aug. 26, the couple could have faced a dilemma.

The boys all weighed under five pounds, and doctors wanted to keep two of them, Reed and Ryan, in intensive care for a few days.

“They didn’t have any health problems really. They were only there because they were under five pounds,” said Kilgore. “They just had to gain weight and be able to maintain their body temperature.”

That might have meant the parents would have to drive back and forth from Chatsworth each day. But instead, thanks to the Ronald McDonald House, the Kilgores were able to stay right across the street from the hospital and see their boys every day until they were released 16 days later.

The Kilgores will be one of several families featured during a telethon for the Ronald McDonald House Saturday night on WTVC-NewsChannel 9 from 7 until 11.

“Just to be able to stay there and not have to go back and forth every day was a real blessing. We were fortunate,” said Kilgore. “You feel like you are at home. You don’t have to pay anything. You are pretty much allowed to do whatever you would do at home while you are there.”

Established in 1990, Chattanooga Ronald McDonald House Charities provides a “home away from home” each year for approximately 600 families of critically injured and seriously ill children receiving treatment at nearby hospitals in Chattanooga. The cornerstone programs are the 26-bedroom Ronald McDonald House, the Ronald McDonald Family Room inside T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital, and the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile, a mobile dental clinic providing free dental cleanings and examinations to underserved, school-age children in the Tennessee Valley.

Ronald McDonald House provides the basic needs for families so family members can focus on helping their loved ones recover. Families are asked to donate $10 per night to help offset expenses, although operating costs are $55 per night. Families that cannot pay anything may choose to help with chores. In 2009, 48 percent of families did an extra chore as payment.

“You never know when it’s going to hit close to home. Where I work, we are the third family in two years that has been up there,” said Kilgore.

In 2009, Ronald McDonald House Charities provided 283 nights of comfort to 22 families from Murray County for an average of 15 days, according to information provided by the charity.

That’s why, Kilgore said, she and her husband want to get the word out about the Ronald McDonald House and how it has helped them and their friends and neighbors.

“I don’t know what we would have done without the Ronald McDonald House,” Terri Kilgore said.