In February 2006 my mother in law Elaine Hopper was diagnosed with a sarcoma in her hip. She was just 52 years young. The doctor gave her just 11 months top to live. The news hit us like a bolt of lightning directly from hell. Elaine was such a healthy woman walking over 5 miles a day with her dog and doing her part time job as a cleaner at an elderly lady’s house. She never smoked and lived a good wholesome life. She began treatment starting with radio therapy then going on to chemotherapy. She continued the therapy 4 days and nights in Bournemouth hospital 7 days nights out for the whole of the summer and autumn 2006.

As winter approached there was a glimmer of hope as the doctors believed the tumour to be destroyed on the outer edge but still living in the centre. We spent the beginning of 2007 in hope that Elaine had turned a corner but as the summer approached a cat scan reviled our worst nightmares. The tumour was back to its original state and sending spurs of cancer to her lungs. Our worlds were falling apart again. My wife went part time at her job working for the RSPCA to spend what time she could with her best friend, her mum. And I gave in my job working for my Dad as a window cleaner to start my own window cleaning business just so I could earn more money to enable us to start a family and provide Elaine with her 1^st grandchild, some thing she had always looked forward to.

In September 2007 we conceived and began the wait until our child joined us in the world. Without a shadow of doubt it gave Elaine something extra to fight for because by this time she was growing weaker every week and every chemotherapy session became harder and harder.

Elaine spent many days and nights in Bournemouth hospital and found the nurses to be to busy to bother with any emotional care. But one place she did find some comfort was from the Macmillan volunteer that would visit her and her husband Mick with kind words of support and advise on how to cope with what was undoubtedly an un just life sentence.

The nine months passed quickly for us but not so for Elaine as by now she had become so weak she was retired to a wheelchair the wonderful people at the British Red Cross had loaned us. But that wheel chair was truly a god send as it enabled Elaine to visit my wife Helen and our baby girl May-Rose in Poole maternity hospital on Friday the 13^th of June when she was born. The weeks and months before May-Rose was born Elaine looked in constant pain and always in fear on the dark black cloud that hung over her always, but on that day she appeared pain free. And smiled like she always did but this time with a smile of true happiness. After that day Elaine came to visit the two of them in Bournemouth hospital after they had been transferred for after care as Poole was to busy to cope. Once Helen and May-Rose came home on the Wednesday they both went round Elaine’s to see her. Elaine was able to see her grand child for a couple of hours before she became to tired.

The next we heard from Elaine was via Mick who informed us she had been taken in to Bournemouth hospital because she was struggling breathing. We wanted desperately to see her but with a new baby it was deemed far to risky to enter a hospital with the risk of picking up a nasty virus. After a few days the hospital staff and specialists agreed that Elaine had not long to live and there for would be more suited in the Christchurch Macmillan ward. There she would be able to be moved in to the beautifully kept garden and be able to see us and her new grandaughter. Elaine stayed in the Macmillan ward with its wonderfully helpful and compassionate staff and volunteers for just 6 days until she died on the 1^st of July just 18 days after becoming a Grandmother for the 1^st time.

Without the Macmillan ward at Christchurch Elaine would have been robbed of seeing her daughter, grandaughter and son-in-law before she died. Although the hours we spent waiting for Elaine to pass were filled with sadness the garden we all stayed in some how made them bearable. And we will be eternally grateful to all the staff and volunteers there. There all knew what words were comforting and put us and Elaine before the coffee breaks and shift changes that Bournemouth hospitals nurses and doctors found so important.

My wife is coping as well as can be expected with her loss and adapting very well to being a Mum without her own there to give advice. But I would like to do something in her honor, something that would of made her proud and know she will be forever missed and loved.