Alice's Last Christmas at Fair Havens Hospice

"Alice was the third member of our family. We've got four children and Alice was our third child. She was the maybe the bubbliest one of all four. I'd just say, would you?

"She was definitely the source of life within our family dynamic. Yeah. She loved a party, loved a gathering. She loved a get together, and she was the driving force behind a lot of those times that we got together.

"She was the first one dancing, the last one standing. Yeah. Always.

"It was the March 2022 she found a lump in her breast, so it was obvious there was a problem.  And eventually she was told she had triple negative breast cancer. It was quite an aggressive cancer and she would need chemotherapy and also a mastectomy. And after the operation, she would need radiotherapy. So it was gonna be a nine month to a year's treatment.

"And it was quite a gruelling period ahead. I think what upset her most at the time was having to pack up work.

"And so when she finished her treatment, we all went out together as a family. And she really enjoyed that first glass of champagne, didn't she? It was a lovely moment, wasn’t it?

"Yeah, yeah. A lovely moment. Yeah she…she felt she’d got, you know, she’d got there. We felt that, didn’t we?

"And through the treatment she was saying, ‘I'm gonna celebrate at the end of this.’ And yeah, it was a special moment for her. You know, she's grinning from ear to ear. And it was just… yeah it was good. One glass. But yeah, she really enjoyed it. 

"Just prior to her mastectomy, she had a reconstruction at the same time. She had some pains in her back and it was just put down the sciatica or something of that nature. Over time the pain in her back got worse. It just, yeah, it was like she couldn't do anything without horrific pain in her back. Horrific pain. It was obvious that there was a another problem here.

"They couldn't address the pain, and they couldn't establish where or what was the cause of it.

"Eventually, on 16th December, they came back and told us that it had spread to her spinal fluid. So it was going up through her spine, into her head and setting off like fireworks. It was, that was what the pain was. And there wasn't anything else they could do for her.

"Over the weekend, Alice’s condition worsened, and she was told she only had days left to live.

"So, on 19th December, Alice and her family came to Fair Havens."

"It was just such a relief to be here. It was, somebody suddenly was taking control of her, of hopefully her pain. The room was lovely. It was like a hotel room suddenly. And on the whiteboard in the room, it sort of said, ‘Welcome, Alice.’

"And to come here it was calm and it was, felt like, you know, the staff here took over the situation for us. 

"Alice loved Christmas. Absolutely loved Christmas, didn't she? It was like her favourite time.

"Of year each year would be a big Christmas, and sometimes Christmas we’d have up to 24 people. Alice was very much the centre of all that. She really, really loved Christmas.

"It kind of, the whole month of December was a bit of a blur really, wasn't it, I think.

"Yeah, I think it's that time of year and everything, everyone's going around their normal business and it's just and we're in this sort of bubble of visits. 

"But she wanted, she still wanted Christmas. She was very, very conscious. She’d bought presents for some of her friends’ children and she wanted make sure that they were, everything was delivered to people at the right time, and she wanted it wrapped. It was probably the best Christmas we could have hoped for in the circumstances."

"I mean, in the morning, Alice was actually, when she did wake up Christmas morning, she was excited about it. The family come to visit her. They brought some presents. Our granddaughter, Posey, came along, opened some presents, spoke to Alice. And Alice actually was quite good that day, in respects of she was chatting to us.

"They got her into the chair, hoisted her into a chair, and so she's able to… She wanted some pyjamas on… Yeah. She wanted to be fresh and look nice for the day. They [the hospice] did us a dinner, Christmas dinner. We sat and had dinner with Alice. So it was it was, I'd say, a good day for Alice in the, you know, the best way possible. Best way possible, yeah. 

"I think possibly Christmas Day was the last day that she actually was chatting. I think from Boxing Day onwards it kind of took a little slippery slope.

"Since she started to shut down a bit, I would guess. And I think the seizures became more frequent. But she was, she held on for Christmas Day. She was desperate for that day. She was less and less awake, certainly less and less lucid by that time. But she was peaceful.

"We're just desperate to keep her memory alive. You know, she had an impact on a lot of lives. She was so bubbly, wasn’t she?

"Yeah, and so anything that can do that is so important to the both of us. And if some good can come out of it and there's some money raised for Fair Havens with this Christmas campaign, what could be better?

"That would be the best thing. Best thing ever. I think Alice would probably be laughing at us now, saying, “What you doing, Mum and Dad…can't believe you're doing this!”

"But we are."