In October, Chris and I will be taking to the streets to walk 10 miles, to raise vital funds for Kirkwood Hospice.

Kirkwood will always hold a very special place in our family's hearts for the exceptional care and support they gave to us while my Dad was reaching the end of his life. He had been fighting metastatic lung cancer for 18 months when he became extremely poorly, very quickly. Hospital doctors told us he had 48 hours to live. He was so unhappy in hospital and was visibly giving up, something he had refused to do throughout his illness.

He was transferred to Kirkwood Hospice, where the fantastic doctors and nurses managed against all expectations to stabilise him, which gave him another 7 weeks of pain free, comfortable life. The value of those precious weeks to us as a family cannot be underestimated. As unimaginable as it seems under the circumstances, we look back on it as a happy time, and that is 100%  thanks to Kirkwood Hospice. 

But the level of care that the hospice provides at no cost to patients and their families doesn't come cheap - Kirkwood costs £500,000 a month to keep running, and only receives about 30% of that in government funding. Like many other charities, they have had so many of their fundraising events cancelled due to the pandemic, and it breaks my heart that other families might not get the opportunity we did, so please give whatever you can, however small. 

Unfortunately Chris never had the chance to know my Dad, but I know they would have got on like a house on fire. As we walk, we'll also be remembering Chris's dad, Frank, who also lost his life to this horrible disease. 

Thank you for helping us to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts to Kirkwood, and to go a little way towards giving other families in our situation the amazing opportunity we had.

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