Here we go

In September of last year I lost my mum to Oesophagus Cancer after an 18month, treatment free battle. Watching her health and strength deteriorate, and ultimately her weight drop off (due to being unable to consume solid food) was heart breaking. Nevertheless she remained characteristically strong to the end. During that time her friends dedicated all their free time to support her with some small respites to hospital and St Wilfrid’s Hospice.

If you’ve ever been to the Hospice you will know what an incredible place it is. Not only are the staff on hand for your every need, but it is filled with kind people volunteering to support the hospice as a whole. It means that no one is dying alone or in pain, and all the suffering is minimised as much as possible. I can tell you that without doubt, this is where you hope to be if you have a choice when your time is up, or certainly where you want your parents/partners/friends to be. Nothing is too much for the patient and in my mums dying days, despite being unable to keep anything down, the chef still came in trying to produce flavours for mum to have a last taste of….something…anything.

The hospice costs approx £23k a day to run and mum was fortunate enough to her spend her final 5 days here. How could I ever repay that?!

But I return every week (here now writing this) to remember her and have now concluded that the most money I can raise is by doing something extraordinary that will hopefully generate some much needed funds for the hospice.

After 40 lengths in the pool I think swimming the channel might be preposterous enough to encourage donations, but after 80 I realise I’ll be at the bottom rather quickly. So I’m going to use my paddle board and make the same journey of 18.5 nautical miles, and so a little different to pottering along the coast. I’m aiming to complete this journey on the year anniversary of her passing on September 1st; but obviously this relies on conditions at the time.

I would love it if you could donate generously to the hospice. I can’t really begin to articulate accurately what this place means to me now. I’m not sure we can raise enough to cover one single day here at the hospice, but to do everything I can means we’ve tried.

Thank you for reading, if you’re still here xx