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Updated 21/10/10

I want to thank everyone who has supported me, my family and my friends this year and helped us raise more than £6000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Your donation has ensured terminally ill people in our own postcode area will receive over 270 hours of free nursing care, allowing them the dignity to die at home.

If you have experienced cancer in your own lives then you will understand what this means, not just to patients, but to their families too. This nursing care is a desperate luxury for families dedicated to honouring a loved one's last wish.

Nursing someone at the end of their life is immense. It is impossible to separate the practical from the emotional and I, for one, would have crumbled had it not been for the lifeline that Marie Curie threw us in our hour of need.

My family and I worked round the clock to provide mum with the 24-hour care she needed for three months.

Undoubtedly, the ripple effect of our absence, our exhaustion and our anguish was felt by our extended families - in particular our children - so having a professional nurse for a few hours every odd day gave us the respite we needed to cope.

But many families aren't so lucky.

For every terminally ill patient supported in the UK by Marie Curie, there is, sadly, one they can't reach due to lack of vital funds.

Surely in a civilised society exercising our right to die at home should be a right for everyone?

Marie Curie is currently petitioning the government on this very issue but until legislation is passed they are re-doubling their efforts on the ground to reach twice as many terminally ill patients in 2011.

With this in mind, I continue to fundraise for them and I ask you to continue to support me on this journey as much as you can, if not in deed, in kind. We very much appreciate it.

Thankyou, Petra and Family x

WHY MARIE CURIE

As many of you will know we lost our beloved mum last year (2010) after a short and vicious battle with cancer.

Her brain tumour, diagnosed in April, was aggressive, inoperable and inevitable in its outcome. Mum's fate had been decided and we were helpless to save her.

However, at a point when all choice had been stolen away, mum took back control and asserted her desire to die at home.

We were terrified. How would we cope? What if mum was in pain?

But this was mum's life, mum's death, her choice and it was unthinkable we would not try to honour her last wish - after all she had dedicated more than 50 years of her life to us and our own children.

Together my brother, my sisters, our partners and the eldest two of her 11 grandchildren provided 24hr round the clock care for almost three months.

At times the magnitude of our task was almost unbearable but, at the point when we most needed it, a nurse from Marie Curie arrived to provide us with respite.

We were able to go home to our own families, be wives, mothers, husbands, fathers, to sleep, to cry, to mourn the little daily losses of the woman we loved and steel ourselves for the next day.

Without that occasional break, of knowing mum was safe with a fully trained professional there is little doubt that one of us would have crumbled; that we would not have come through mum's illness intact.

As it was Marie Curie helped mum die the way she wanted to and they helped us, the unseen score of broken hearts, live the way we had to.

Sadly due to complications our mum's last few days were spent in Roxburghe House, Dundee, and she died there on June 28 a little after 4.30 am surrounded by some of her loved ones. She was 69.

Such was mum's bond to home, her little country cottage, that we took her back for one last 'sleep' before we laid her to rest on a beautiful summer's day that belied and betrayed our grief.

Months have now passed. The seasons have changed. Time has not stopped.

Our loss is absolute, mum was such a huge part of our lives. A unique, eccentric and never-to-be-predicted free spirit full of generosity, love and wicked fun.

We are left with many happy memories, a fantastic family and an everlasting legacy of love, life lessons and - thanks to Marie Curie - the priceless knowledge that we gave one precious human being the dignity of choice at the end of life.

That is why I, Renate's baby (complete with wrinkles and grey hairs!) have decided to say thank you to Marie Curie by raising much-needed funds for the nursing care of someone else in our local area.

Marie Curie helped 16,000 people to stay at home last year but for every one family they do help, another goes without. Marie Curie's ambitious two-year plan is to reach out to more families by doubling nursing provision throughout the UK.

But it costs £12,000 of every hour or every day to do this and without our backing, families may be unsupported.

I know times are tight but I would urge you to spare what you can to ease the plight of another family, like ours, who desperately needs the services of a Marie Curie nurse.

Thank you very much, Petra x

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THE STORY SO FAR...

In the weeks after mum's death when we were still struggling to make the most basic decisions about day to day life, it was my eight-year-old daughter Heidi who saw the wood for the trees.

During mum's illness Heidi understood that when a nurse was with nana, her mummy could be home. It was bad enough she was losing her beloved nana but often her mummy was gone for 10 hours at a time, seven days a week.

She knew we appreciated the respite, and she wanted to thank the nurses so, familiar with the concept of fundraising, Heidi hit on the idea of putting her jewellery making skills to good use and got busy.

In early December 2009 Heidi and I, supported by her grandma Maureen McMillan, sold jewellery at the school craft fayre to raise funds.

Between Christmas and New Year friends rallied round and we raised over £400 with a swap shop party trading up on our unwanted gifts.

On December 26th Heidi and I joined other hardy souls to run almost three miles around Forfar Loch in the Plum Pudding Plod. The poor soul hated it and hasn't run since!

For St Valentine's Day Heidi and I made over 200 luxurious cup cakes and sold them at David Lloyd gym in Monifieth.

We also gifted 50 to Roxburghe House in Dundee - one for every patient and staff member.

The Big One

After months of planning, the big event of the summer was our May hike of the West Highland Way, 96 miles from Milngavie to Fort William.

Brenda Hally of Monifieth, Lynsay Milne of Forfar and Jenni Samson of Broughty Ferry and I had a fantastic five days - and a fair amount of pain and exhaustion!

This event, combined with an August ascent of Ben Nevis, Britain's highest peak, helped us raise the majority of our total so far - more than £5500.

To Brenda, Linz and Jenni, their friends and family, I am forever grateful. Px

AND NEXT...

Heidi and I will be making and selling lots of beautiful jewellery for sale over the Christmas period.

We're booked up for a tour of local homes for the elderly, a stall at David Lloyd gym in November and a school craft fayre too - stay tuned for your invite!

March 1, 2010

Sometimes I am utterly humbled by the compassion and generosity of strangers.

Not long after our initial story in The Courier we received a donation for someone I had never heard of. No explanation, no message, just a monetary contribution to push us another step closer to our fundraising target.

This first £10 donation from Mr Aimer was a milestone for me. It underlined my responsibility to the charity and my commitment to the cause. While I knew it all along, I realised there was a legion of faceless souls out there whose lives had been touched by cancer, who recognised the value of Marie Curie and who, despite their own situations, had hearts big enough to help others.

Days later that simple on-line click grew to a gentle slap on my doormat when a letter arrived from a Mrs Scott in Dundee. In a card - simply addressed 'Heidi McMillan, Carnoustie' - she explained she wanted to donate £100 in recognition of my daughter's fundraising over Christmas.

Her husband is being cared for largely by her but with support from Marie Curie. The couple - both in their 80s - have three children, all of whom live far from home.

What amazed me about Mrs Scott was she could easily have donated to the charity directly but she chose to seek out Heidi and praise her for her enthusiasm in raising cash in memory of her late nana.

So to Mrs Scott, I send my heartfelt thanks to Mr Scott, our love and respect.