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💯 On Saturday 7th September I’m riding 100 miles with many others to raise money for LOROS Hospice. Last year friends, family and colleagues helped me to achieve a staggering amount of donations and my plans for this year were to continue events but due to injury I’ve had to hold back, but I’m determined to make this ride.

The ride is to raise money for LOROS Hospice in Leicester and is in memory of my wife, Linette, who was freed from her 9 year battle with cancer on 26th February 23.

Linette’s story

Linette lost her mum in 2007 to secondary Breast cancer so had been part of her life for some time. After finding 2 lumps which were found to be benign she developed a rash in 2014. This rash was not seen to be of concern with her GP, however as she’d had it for a number of weeks was referred to the breast care centre at Leicester’s Glenfield Hospital. This was confirmed to be breast cancer and she started her treatment of chemotherapy within days of confirmation, followed by radiotherapy and mastectomy of her left breast.

This surgery was followed in 2015 by an elective second mastectomy along with reconstructive surgery to her left breast and 6 weeks later a full hysterectomy followed by further reconstructive surgeries through 2016.

In February 2018, after a routine check, she was referred to her oncologist Dr Samson, as cancer had been found in her sternum. The initial conversation was to discuss palliative treatment but after asking if an operation was possible we were told it’s not unheard of but was very rare, however she was referred to the Thoracic department. After meeting Mr Chowdry, he explained that surgery was an option as the cancer was contained to the sternum, that this type of surgery was rare, only performed once or twice per year and that it was a joint venture between 2 hospitals to include the plastic surgery department. The alternative option was radiotherapy followed by medication, this was not an option for Linette and knowing she qualified for the operation was better than winning the lottery.

After a meeting with Mr Patel, the plastic surgeon, who had prepared her that she would loose both breast implants due to the type of surgery. The surgery went ahead and was more successful than anticipated as she became the first person in the world to have a successful sternum reconstruction using pigs skin and bone cement whilst having a section of her back muscle poked around her rib cage to protect the area whilst keeping both breasts implants. We have been told of only one other reconstruction in Leicestershire since. Linette was pushing herself within weeks and frustrated with how little progress she felt she was making, however her rehabilitation took years, and she had to be shown a video to understand why she wasn’t recovering as quickly as she wanted to. A further breast re augmentation was completed in 2019.

Also in 2019, she was once again diagnosed, the cancer had developed further in her bones and she was started on chemotherapy tablets, after only 3 months the cancer had spread, switching to IV chemotherapy which was supported by radiotherapy which we later called spot welding as part of pain management. As treatments continued and scans showed the increase through vertebrae, ribs and hips were all infected and eventually spreading into her liver. During lockdown we were regularly walking 17-20 miles a week, this led to pain and discomfort but she persisted unaware that the pain was actually her bones and not muscular. One day Linette was skipping in the garden to build her fitness before receiving a phone call to say she should go to hospital as she had a cracked vertebrae in her neck, basically a broken neck, she was given a neck brace which she had to wear 24 hours a day for 6 weeks whilst given high levels of calcium to help repair the vertebrae.

During her latest battle she overcame Sepsis twice, Covid and also an infection in her original breast as it started to collapse where in September 2022 had the implant removed following a number of hospital stays throughout the year.

After over 2 years of almost constant chemotherapy we decided that quality of life was the approach to take and treatment was to stop. Although being told on several occasions that certain landmarks would not be achieved in 2022, we had a family holiday, she saw Marcus marry Sam, Christmas was brought forward as the end of year was seen as highly doubtful but as a family we were lucky to have a second Christmas that year and then she met her grandson Kyloh, born in January 23, before her health started to severely decline, moving to Loros with what became very complicated symptoms, where she spent over 7 weeks before being freed from her fight on Sunday 26th February.

Despite everything, whether it be the years of treatment, recovery of many operations, an infection, Covid or the daily pain she endured her outlook remained the same and cancer was never going to define her. She always said that there was always someone worse off and that laughter was the best medicine and we always did laugh, while she lived for her family and friends.

We are so proud and lucky to have her in our lives for so long, she is an inspiration to everyone who knows her and will be eternally missed.

Thank you for reading and thank you for your donation.

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