Jango donates a whopping €30,700 to Aoibheann’s Pink Tie after charity pledge
Even while fighting for his life, Colin ‘Jango’ Fleming from Coolgreany managed to raise a total of €30,700 for Aoibheann’s Pink Tie Charity.
In August Colin, who has acute myeloid leukaemia, was told by doctors that he only had a few weeks to live and decided to make a charity pledge in aid of the national children’s cancer charity by raffling off his three-day Electric Picnic ticket through an ‘everydayhero’ webpage before passing away.
The original plan was to shut down the page once Colin passed and have his three kids donate the money in his memory, but miraculously Colin has been given a second chance at life and donated the cheque last week with help from county Wexford hurler Conor McDonald, former Ireland soccer star Paul McGrath and heavyweight boxer Niall ‘Basil’ Kennedy.
The motivation to keep going was sparked by young five year old Joseph Masterson who has leukaemia and still has another two and a half years of chemo left to go.
‘He is the reason why I raised this money,’ said Colin. ‘I hate to see kids like Joe suffer, it is not fair.’
Described as a walking miracle by those who know Colin, he was rushed into St James’ Hospital in Dublin after falling extremely ill one week after receiving the devastating news in August. He thought that was the end and had accepted death, but two weeks later he came off the morphine and drugs and started to come around.
Colin said he had a diary with funeral arrangements, memory boxes for his kids and talks with is wife Schalan on what to say to the eldest child once the time came to passing away.
‘I can’t explain it, the doctors think the last round of chemo and treatment just finally kicked in,’ said Colin. ‘My bloods are finally good enough to have the bone marrow transplant on December 18.’