Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

This page is in memory of my brother David Walsh who died suddenly on the 26th January 2014 at his home in Monterrey, Mexico.

A few people have mentioned the idea of donations or flowers. We thought as a family it would be better that people consider giving something to this charity.

This bit is really important - please don't feel that you have to give lots of cash - every pound/fiver/ tenner given would be really wonderful.

I have copied his words from Facebook as I think he says this sort of thing better than I can.

Four years ago today at just after 6pm I was given the news that I had a few months left to live (three to six was the guess). I had advanced Small Cell Lung Cancer, stage IV (it had spread to my brain). SCLC is the second most deadly cancer after pancreatic cancer it has the highest mortality rate of the lung cancers with just 5% of people surviving more than 5 years.
People often ask me how it feels to have survived it and assume it has changed my life in some earth shattering way. I usually tell people yes it has but in reality it hasn’t made it better. A cancer patient is always a cancer patient, people assume that once you are told you are in remission or ‘cured’ if you will, that everything is great and that your life will be rosier than before, this is not true. The anxiety of the tests we have to have three or four times a year is indescribable, but we feel it is wrong to complain. There are many people who are reading this who have family or friends dead or dying of cancer who would gladly change places…I’m just saying how it is. We never stop feeling guilty for surviving.
Many people who were my friends before have not spoken to me since my diagnosis four years ago, people avoid you and make excuses. I have tried to find a meaning and a reason as to why I survived and millions others didn’t, after four years I still can’t. I went on to websites and tell people I meet what happened and people don’t believe it and have even got aggressive with me for lying over how bad my cancer was, telling me I should be dead if what I said was true and that I am a phony .
What I can say is that the worse week of my life was not knowing I had cancer and would die but the week before when I was waiting, many cancer sufferers say this. If you feel a lump or have felt bad for a while or cough up blood etc., etc., get to the doctor, if you catch cancer early it is treatable (and sometimes late as I have proved) it is not a ‘battle’ or ‘war’ or any of those metaphors people use, it is your own body and you’ll cope with it easier than you think.
Since January I have started suffering from clonic tonic seizures a result of the cyst left on my brain from the radiotherapy treatment, one time crashing my car on the main road here, wrecking my car ending up in hospital, the last episode I had was last week, I have no idea how that will progress.
Suffice to say, and to end on a note most of you who know me will laugh at, when the doctor told me I was to die imminently those four years ago, the first thing I thought was ‘ oh shit, England have just qualified for the World Cup (in South Africa), I’ll miss it!’…now I’m looking forward to Brazil, that is amazing.
Thanks to those people who’ve helped me, visited me in hospital, drove me to hospital, sent me a message of support, you know who you are.
Wally xx
PS: This photo was of my first day back at work for nine months, I was off undergoing chemo and radiotherapy, taken in August 2010.