Paul at Great Ormond Street
‘The kids are amazing’
Paul O’grady is passionate about Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, but as a grandfather of two, he’s equally emotional about one very special hospital – Great Ormond Street in Bloomsbury, central London.
For his moving new ITV series, Paul O’grady’s Little Heroes, the presenter volunteers his services on the wards – doing everything from serving the dinners to decorating plaster casts – and along the way meets some of the bravest and most inspirational patients.
‘The kids are amazing because they’ve got cystic fibrosis, they’ve got cancer, they’re on dialysis, and they’re just dealing with it – they never moan,’ Paul, 63, tells us. ‘It’s sad but it’s also very inspiring. They are a lesson to us all.’
This week, he meets 13-year-old Mackenzie Hudson, who has spent years suffering at the hands of bullies having been born with the congenital condition microtia (Greek for ‘little ear’). Cameras follow Mackenzie as he finally has the ear reconstruction surgery that he hopes will change his life – and Paul is in theatre to watch.
‘It was fascinating,’ says Paul. ‘They took his ribs out and made him a brand-new ear.’
Here, Mackenzie’s mum, Louise, 42, tells TV Times more about her son’s remarkable surgery…
When did you first discover Mackenzie had microtia?
We knew nothing about it until he was born. I went through a stage of blaming myself, thinking, ‘Is there anything I’ve done that’s caused this?’ But the doctors couldn’t give us any answers. It’s affected the hearing in his left ear and when he was younger it affected his balance as well – it took him a long time to learn how to walk and he was forever falling over.
What has life been like for him? It’s been hard. People always stared at him and his peer group were nasty. He was bullied at school, both junior school and secondary school, and, of course, that really knocked his confidence. He thought he was ugly – he was a monster in his eyes and that broke my heart. In the end, he was coming up with so many excuses because he didn’t want to go to school, and when he did go in, he’d come home crying. At one stage the bullies would all bundle him and start kicking him at lunchtime. It brought me to tears. I just thought, ‘Why don’t they like my son for who he is?’
As Paul O’grady goes behind the scenes,
Louise Hudson reveals how Great Ormond Street Hospital helped her 13-year-old son…
How did you find out about the reconstruction surgery?
From Mackenzie’s ear, nose and throat doctor when Mackenzie was about eight. We felt it wasn’t a choice for us to make for him, though. We believed that he had to make it for himself – and, with all the bullying at school, he decided to go ahead. He was really down on
himself and he just wanted to get his confidence back.
When he’d chosen to go ahead, what did the operation involve? They took a template of his other ear, then removed part of the cartilage from one of his ribs to create the framework for his new ear, using skin from his scalp to cover it. I came out of theatre crying and Paul O’grady was there and gave me the most massive cuddle! I just couldn’t stop staring at Mackenzie’s new ear – we’d had all those years of imagining what it would look like and now it had come to reality.
How has it changed his life? does he still suffer from bullying?
The bullying has totally stopped and he’s like a different person now. He used to wear a hoodie to hide his ear but now he walks down the street with his head held high. He’ll need a second operation at some point to improve the look of his new ear, but to finally see your child smile after all the hurt is a real gift. We can’t thank the Great Ormond Street Hospital staff enough – they’ve changed Mackenzie’s life and we’re so grateful.
To finally see your child smile after all the hurt
is a real gift
LOUISE HUDSON