Rānui House

A year at Rānui – how 24 hours changed everything for this Greymouth family

Anne Dwyer knew something wasn’t right with her husband Steve. She had a doctor’s appointment booked but told Steve to take it.

That decision probably saved his life.

“I don’t think Steve would be here if he’d waited much longer. We had no idea how sick he was,” Anne says.

That appointment was on 10 November 2023. Steve had blood samples taken and went home. He then received a call to return to the doctor urgently.

“The doctor just said, ‘you’ve got leukemia.’ I was utterly shocked,” Steve says.

What happened next is a bit of a blur for the Dwyer family.

Steve was admitted to hospital. The next day, he was helicoptered to Christchurch Hospital.

For Anne, who was Nurse Director Operations at Grey Hospital, the bottom dropped out of her world.

“I was just filled with worry. I had so much to do, I didn’t know where to start. I had to resign from my job, give away our pets and move our family to Christchurch – all while trying to spend as much time in Christchurch as possible as Steve was so unwell,” Anne says.

While Steve was starting intense treatment, Anne packed up their lives – and their lives were very full. Steve has three teenage children, Anne has two boys, and they have four-year-old twins together. Three of the children moved with them to Christchurch. They found their home at Rānui House.

“I was in a world of worry when I got the call from Yvonne at Rānui House. From then on, the Rānui team just took so many of our worries away. It was incredible,” Anne says.

Anne along with 11-year-old Tobey and four-year-old’s Ava and Millie moved into Rānui House in early December 2023. The twins were enrolled in a pre-school in the city and Tobey was offered a place at Cathedral Grammer School – all organised through Rānui House.

“It’s like I have post-traumatic stress – sometimes I can’t even remember how it all happened. Rānui just worked its magic. So many stresses were taken away so we could just focus on keeping Steve alive,” Anne says.

Steve was alive – just. He was receiving heavy doses of chemotherapy, trying to get his Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia into remission.

After two attempts, the chemo did the trick and Steve was released to Rānui House. He had a month to rest before preparation began for his bone marrow transplant.

“I had massive doses of chemo coupled with total body radiation. I tell people regular chemo is easy compared to that,” Steve says.

“It’s like they put you in a big microwave, pack you in rice, and cook you. It essentially kills your whole immune system and anything else decent in your body.”

Steve says they then “plugged in” his new stem cells, which came from Germany.

Anne says it was a gruelling process to watch with Steve becoming a shell of his normal self.

A particularly horrifying time was when he was struck by a Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection while trying to recover from his bone marrow transplant.

“That infection pretty much nearly killed him,” Anne says.

Steve, who has faced his challenges with his unique dry wit and humour, says he “laughed in the face of death”.

Now, five months on from his bone marrow transplant, the Dwyer family are starting to think about heading home to Greymouth.

“The experiences of the last year will shape us – especially the children, who have all coped with varying degrees. On the whole, they’ve done bloody well but there have been some pretty low times.”

Their best support during those low times has been found at Rānui House.

“We’ve met so many people since we’ve been here – people from the Chathams to central North Island to Southland. You’re dragged together by this common thread, which is the fact you’re pretty much on death’s door, but you understand each other,” Steve says.

Steve says the Rānui House team have also shown so much compassion and care.

“The Rānui team make you feel so welcome. When you arrive there are handmade quilts on the beds and teddies for the kids. For Christmas we were given a whole ham and a beautiful hamper. It’s so bloody humbling.”

Anne says for her, Rānui has taken away so many of her worries.

“We still have a mortgage to pay, we’re both unemployed, and we’re trying to focus on Steve’s health. But from giving us a home to getting the kids into school and preschool, Rānui House just took so many of our worries away. Cathedral Grammer even gave us everything Tobey needed, down to socks and shoes. It was unbelievable,” Anne says.

Both Anne and Steve say its the Rānui experiences the kids will remember most.

“Rānui organised ponies to come in which the girls just loved, and we all love the family dinners.

“You think the hospital is the caring side, but it isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, the hospital team is awesome, but the care and the compassion that we’ve had from Rānui House and the community here has been amazing.”

Thinking about the future, both Anne and Steve are talking about part-time work, spending time in their garden and sitting on the stony West Coast beaches feeling the sea spray on their faces.

They’re also reflecting on their time at Rānui House.

“People might think Rānui is just a place, but its more than that. It’s the spirit of this place that is just so special and once you’ve experienced it, it’s something you’ll never forget.”