My wife, Katherine and I are living in Greece, running a diving centre. Katherine is an extremely accomplished diver, and has risen far in her underwater career. As an Instructor Trainer, she has played a significant part to promote the sport of scuba diving.

Back in the Spring of 2014, Katherine was admitted to hospital in Crete to remove two of five meningioma tumours. After an unsuccessful operation, she was left in an extremely poor state of health, and a large part of her skull missing.

In order to try and reduce the swelling to allow for an artificial skull to be fitted, her Doctors decided to admit her for a second operation and remove even more skull. Unfortunately, this caused even more problems, and Katherine was left blind in her right eye, and paralysed all down her left side.

Over the next eighteen months, we fought to get her re-admitted so they could replace the missing skull and allow her to recover. Unfortunately, the Greek health system failed us and she ended up in a nightmare situation, where the Doctors were unwilling to operate on her, but at the same time were refusing to admit this on paper. Had they done so, she would have been eligible to travel abroad for her healthcare.

In the meantime, Katherine was completely unable to pursue her passion for diving. Instead she had to concentrate upon her recovery, and she worked exceptionally hard and every single day pushed herself further and further. In return for all her hard work, she went from being completely unable to walk, to being able to see again fully and even run a gentle half-marathon.

We investigated all her options for getting medical assistance and, thankfully, the Masonic Charitable Foundation offered to help and pay the costs of her surgery, which was estimated to be £45,000.

In April 2017, Katherine was admitted to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, and after three successful operations, she finally received a replacement for the missing piece of skull. Her head is far from perfect, and she still has to worry about five tumours that have not been removed, but she is grateful to finally climb out of a very deep, dark hole.

We are extremely grateful for the opportunity that the Masonic Charitable Foundation has given Katherine to start to get a normal life back, and we would like to repay them so that someone else can benefit from their benevolence.

You can find out more about them here: https://mcf.org.uk/

Thank you for taking the time to read Katherine's story, and we hope that you will help us to support the good works of the Masonic Charitable Foundation.