Sweet charity
DIY SOS: THE BIG BUILD BBC1, 8pm
‘YOU can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.” Whoever knew Nick Knowles could be so wise? In another tearjerker of an episode, Nick and a team of over 100 volunteers pull off a lifechanging home makeover for the Sweet family in Weston-super-Mare.
Cat and Chris have three kids, all of whom have extremely serious life-limiting illnesses.
The youngest, six-year-old Harry, was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos syndrome just before his first birthday after he started regressing.
Then in 2017, genetic testing revealed that their other children Louisa, 14, and Max, 11, had Friedreich’s Ataxia, a rare and neurodegenerative condition.
All three children will in the near future need to use wheelchairs full time, but the family home is making life a struggle.
Louisa says: “Mum deserves the house being done more than we do, because she struggles getting my brothers up the stairs and around the house.”
The family looks to the future with real dread, knowing what these awful degenerative conditions hold in store.
Full-time carer Cat says: “I’m really strong most of the time, but I always have a wobble on their birthdays because it’s one step nearer to that birthday and I hate it.”
Cat fears that if the house isn’t appropriate or safe for children with such serious medical needs, the children won’t be able to live in the house any more.
They are all overwhelmed as the hordes of volunteers turn up ready to start the mammoth project, which brings the family “a little bit of normal”.
Emotional doesn’t even begin to cover it...