By Jack Fifield and Jessica Rothwell via SWNS
A terminally ill dad dressed up as Santa and had his wheelchair converted into a sleigh and pulled by pals dressed as reindeer to raise money for his care.
Dad-of-one Dwayne Wells, 38, was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) in June 2023 and given between two and four years to live.
At the weekend Dwayne – who suffers the same condition that killed rugby legend Rob Burrow – dressed up in festive garb for Xmas Santa dash.
He was joined by friends and Rob Burrow’s close pal Kevin Sinfield for the dash in his home town of Saddleworth, Gtr Manchester.
The event was held to raise $100,000 to fund adaptions to Dwayne’s home to make his life more comfortable for him and wife Kerry.
After Dwayne had trouble completing the 2km dash last year on foot, they decided to transform his wheelchair into a sleigh to make it work.
Kerry, 36, said: “We built a sleigh to stick around his wheelchair, we had the closest male relatives as reindeers pulling the sleigh.
“There’s me dressed as Mrs Claus, our daughter dressed as an elf, and various other elves from our closest support network.
“We started the 2k race at the front, leading the way with the Nordic Walkers because we’re a lot slower, to prevent us getting crushed in the stampeded of Santas.
“We’re promoting the fact that we are fundraising and we’re a local family that needs a bit of help.”
Dwayne head of commercial at a bus company, first noticed something was wrong after hurting his thumb removing a crows’ nest from part of the family’s home in Spring 2022.
But when his injury still hurt by Christmas, he went to his GP who initially thought it was carpal tunnel.
When it hadn’t got any better in a couple of months he went back and was sent for further tests.
Dwayne bought himself a Ukulele to learn to play the couple’s wedding song, Lava.
But as time progressed, he couldn’t use the chords and lost the ability control his hand movement.
In June 2023, just a week after the couple’s honeymoon in Lanzarote, Dwayne was sent for further tests.
Doctors have since confirmed that Dwayne has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a fatal form of motor neurone disease.
It causes the progressive loss of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement and Dwayne has been given just four years to live.
Rail firm worker Kerry said: “I just broke. I said ‘you need to come home’.
“Then he had a two-and-a-half hour drive back from the North East to home, with me on my own as well at home with this horrible news.”
Dwayne’s condition has now declined to the point that he can’t walk unaided or use a knife and fork.
The couple’s house has steps at both the front and back doors, meaning it takes Dwayne around an hour to leave the house.
The family is now facing more than $100,000 in costs to alter their home to make it fully wheelchair accessible.
Just changing the entrances will cost a whopping $53,000.
Kerry said: “We’ve lost what made us, the fun. We were constantly at the theater going out shopping or going out for tea.
“We had a spreadsheet of all our favorite restaurants and were ranking them, and making our way around the country trying different things, documenting things so we could go back in the future.
“Now, we don’t really have that on the horizon.”
