AS HE fought for life in Glasgow’s children’s hospital, doctors described him as “the sickest baby in Scotland” – now look at Dawson Lundy go.

“We were told he had a 50-50 chance of surviving,” explains his mother, Carla.

“It was so difficult – we had no idea what was going to happen.”

The smiley toddler tearing around his Ayrshire home is a world away from the newborn who needed round-the-clock care in the days and weeks after he was born.

“My 20 week-scan showed our baby had a hole in his diaphragm, which meant the stomach and other organs were squeezing through the space and stopping his lungs from growing,” says Carla. “It’s a very rare condition, called congenital diaphragmatic hernia, or CDH.

“We had never heard of it. We had no idea what to expect.

“I had to have extra scans, and two weeks before my due date, I had to go into hospital to be monitored. When Dawson was born, he was taken away from us immediately, and we didn’t get to see him for hours.”

She adds: “When we did finally see him, he was in intensive care. After that, we just went from hour to hour, waiting for the doctors to give us news, knowing that anything could change at any minute.”

Read more: The Govanhill shop that's helping to change a city - meet Glasgow's best green business

Carla, who works in social services, and her husband Ross, a former goalie with Largs Thistle who is now a courier company supervisor, prepared themselves for the worst.

“The next day he was baptised and given the last rites,” recalls Carla. “It was touch and go.”

Dawson had surgery to repair the diaphragm and “put his organs back where they were supposed to be,” explains Carla. “It was all such a shock, and it changed every day.”

The couple were given a room in Ronald McDonald House on Govan Road, right beside the Royal Hospital for Sick Children.

The house provides free accommodation for families, allowing parents and siblings to stay close to children who are critically ill in hospital.

Altogether, the couple spent 100 nights in the house.

“It was fantastic,” says Carla. “We had no idea the Ronald McDonald House even existed until we needed it. Now, we don’t know what we would have done without it.”

Read more: Fun, fizz and fundraising on the menu at charity lunch

Dawson was put on the children’s hospital’s ECMO machine, a life support system which acts as a heart and lungs bypass.

“At that point, the doctors told us Dawson was the sickest baby in Scotland,” says Carla. “And then, suddenly, things calmed down and everything changed.”

Slowly but surely, Dawson began to get better.

“He made a brilliant U-turn and started to improve,” says Carla. “He spent two weeks on ECMO, and had to have scans every day, but he was getting better.”

Eventually, Dawson was well enough to go home.

“We had to have oxygen at home at first, and we had another scare when he was about a year old, which landed him back in hospital,” says Carla.

“He was diagnosed with Hirschsprung's disease, a rare bowel condition, so he needed another op and we were back at the Ronald McDonald House for two weeks.”

Carla and Ross made a heartfelt speech about their experience at the recent Ronald McDonald Houses Ball, which raised £127,000 at a glittering event in the Glasgow Hilton Hotel last month.

“Staying in the house made such a difference,” says Carla, with feeling. “We were just a few minutes’ away from him, we could spend every minute with him, rather than making the long journey up from Ardrossan every day.

“We could sleep in a comfy bed, cook in the kitchen and use the washing machine, and try and have at least some kind of normality,” she adds.

“We also met other families, sharing our stories and getting their advice and that was amazing.

"Until you have a seriously ill child in hospital, you really have no idea what it’s like but meeting families in the same situation really helped because they understood what we were going through.”

Carla adds: “The doctors told us Dawson is here today partly because of the love and strength we showed him. It was the most difficult time of our lives, but the Ronald McDonald House gave us the energy to survive it together.”

Kate Walker, who has been a McDonald’s franchisee for more than 15 years, was heavily involved in the organisation of the event.

She said: "We are thrilled with the amount of money raised. The cost of running the houses is massive and such a big donation will really help."

Dawson will be three next month. He loves going to nursery and is a big fan of animals. A recent trip to Blair Drummond Safari Park was a great success, and he is looking forward to seeing even more animals at Heads of Ayr Farm Park soon.

“He is most looking forward to seeing the sheep, of all things,” laughs Carla.

“He is perfectly healthy. To look at him, you would have no idea he has been through so much.”