The Mandurah community is pulling together to support a local family whose baby suffers from congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), a medical condition that affects thousands of newborns each year.
Solomon’s Slam is a basketball competition and family day organised by the Mandurah Filipino Sports Club to raise awareness the rare childhood disease.
Solomon Tongue was born last year with CDH, a condition that neither his parents, Glenn and Amanda, had heard of.
“We found out at my 20 week anatomy scan,” Mrs Tongue said.
“They said they'd found something wrong and to go see your doctor and luckily we got in that day and she had heard of CDH before so she knew a little bit about it.”
Mrs Tongue said there were as many as 3000 babies born every year in Australia with CDH, but the survival rate was as low as 50 per cent.
“We're really lucky we've brought our baby home,” she said.
“He’ll never be through the woods, it's on-going; he doesn’t have lung capacity like a normal baby, because all the contents of the stomach push up into the chest.”
Mrs Tongue said Solomon was in hospital for 53 days before he could be brought home.
“We couldn't have done it at all without all the help we had,” she said.
That help included Mr Tongue’s friends from the Mandurah Filipino Sports Club, where he is a regular on the basketball courts.
Club president Carolina Allen said the club wasn’t just about ball games.
“It's not just about sport, it's about community spirit,” she said.
“We wanted to look after Solomon, and mum and dad, as well.
“It was so tough for Amanda and Glenn at the beginning, we all pitched into help, especially helping with this fundraiser; it’s gong to be a real family fun day.”
Mrs Allen said the Lions Club was helping by running a sausage sizzle.
There would also be a raffle, door prizes, a three-point shoot out competition, an all-star high-roller shootout, and a womens’ free-throw shoot out, in addition to the main event three-on-three basketball tournament.
Mr Tongue said he thought of the basketball competition because of the support his family had received from the basketball community.
“I like basketball and I wanted to do something to pay back the support of CDH Australia because they get no government support,” he said.
Mr Tongue said he had played basketball in Mandurah for many years and the friends he had made along the way would be helping on the day.
“We want to raise a little money, sure, but more importantly, we want to raise awareness,” he said.
“We're hoping it'll be a big event.”
Funds raised by Solomon’s Slam, which will be held at Mandurah Aquatic and Recreation Centre on Sunday, October 11 from 9am, will be donated to CDH Australia.
For more information about Solomon’s slam go to facebook.com/3on3forCDH
To learn more about CDH go to cdh.org.au
