Fallon

A medical emergency is scary enough for a child, but imagine being unable to speak the same language as your health care team.

That’s what happened to nine-year-old Fallon when her kidneys were failing, but the team at HSC Children’s Hospital made her feel supported despite the language barrier.

“I didn’t leave the hospital for five weeks because Fallon would get emotional every time I tried,” says Sharon, Fallon’s mom. “She’d been abandoned a couple of times in her life and there was no way this parent she had grown to love would leave her again.”

Fallon is one of 11 children Sharon and her husband Rob adopted from Ukraine after raising their nine biological children. They first met Fallon in 2017 while adopting three siblings from a children’s group home in the southwestern part of Ukraine. Three years later, they returned to adopt Fallon and her siblings.

“She would always be there, always with this big smile on her face,” says Sharon. “When we were back three years later to adopt her and her siblings, she still had a big smile. Rob calls her Bubbles because she’s always so bubbly.”

Fallon and her biological siblings were close friends with the three kids Sharon and Rob first adopted, and the family felt it was important to bring them all together. In March of 2020, Fallon, Sharon, Rob and Fallon’s seven siblings got on the last plane out of Ukraine as travel restrictions began during the pandemic.

But getting everyone home safely was only the first step.

Sharon and Rob are both nurses in Steinbach, Manitoba and they knew Fallon was facing health challenges. Her skin was orange and she was incredibly weak, but when they first arrived home in Grunthal, Manitoba, it was difficult to see a doctor with COVID-19 restrictions in place.

Five weeks after the family returned from Ukraine, Fallon got into a clinic for bloodwork. As soon as the results came back, Sharon and Rob received a call to take Fallon to HSC Children’s Hospital Emergency Department because she was in end-stage kidney failure.

Fallon was admitted right away and put on dialysis, a medical treatment that works like an artificial kidney to help clean the blood of toxins.

Even though Fallon could only speak Ukrainian, the staff at HSC Children’s found ways to show her they cared.

“The doctors, the nurses, the Child Life team—everybody was so good to her,” says Sharon. “They played games with her, sat with her to make friendship bracelets, and the music therapists sang and danced with her.”

Fallon’s first hospital stay in Canada lasted six weeks in hospital, including more than five weeks in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) because she contracted sepsis. Over the next three years, as Fallon waited for a matching kidney for a transplant, she got her nutrition through tube feeds and was connected to a dialysis machine for 10-12 hours every night, which Rob and Sharon set up themselves.

“I always say God knew what he was doing because he gave all these kids with all these needs to two parents who are nurses,” says Sharon.

In May of 2023, Fallon’s team found a matching kidney donor, and she went back to HSC Children’s Hospital for her transplant. After about two weeks of recovery, Fallon’s new kidney began to work with about 45 per cent function. Her quality of life significantly improved as she no longer needed dialysis.

“It meant she could go to school, it meant she could be in sports, it meant she could go for sleepovers,” says Sharon.

In January 2027, Fallon will graduate from high school. She has already been accepted into a health care aid education program and hopes to eventually become a nurse. She also loves to sing in her spare time.  

Fallon’s family is grateful for the amazing care she received and is looking forward to celebrating every moment of her bright future together.