“Ben was a gardener,” said his friend James. “I first met him when he put an ad in the paper for someone to help him with his work. I was 17. I’d just moved out of home, and I had no money. I’d passed my driving test, but I couldn't afford a car. I replied to the ad and cycled down to Ben’s place on the first day. It was raining so hard! I got soaked. After the first day of us working together, he went into his house and got £1,000 and told me to go and buy a car so I didn’t have to cycle there in the rain anymore. He didn't know where I lived, or anything about me really, he only knew my name and my mobile number. He was just a really good guy. And so we used to work together, gardening. He was really funny; he was always playing tricks on me. I never thought I was gullible, but somehow he would always catch me out. It was hilarious. We started being friends from then on. We used to do weight training together. He was as strong as an ox! Then I started a plumbing company, and he came and did some work for me. And again, somehow he still played tricks on me all the time.”
Ben was only 29 when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Surgeons removed the tumour and Ben went into remission. “They thought he was all good,” said James, “but then he went back in, and they found it on his spine. They tried to put him on some more chemotherapy, but it just didn't work. That’s when he was referred to Phyllis Tuckwell and was admitted to their In-Patient Unit.”
Our In-Patient Unit (IPU) offers 24-hour care for patients who need symptom management or end of life care. Our specialist team of doctors, nurses, health care assistants and therapists support patients with responsive symptom management and compassionate care, while our counsellors and pastoral care team provide professional emotional support for patients and their loved ones. Ben had been living at home with his parents and his young son, and needed physical support as his condition worsened.
“Ben was over six foot; he was a really big bloke,” said James. “His mum and dad were in their 70s, and they lived with his little boy, Benji, who was only six at the time. Ben always wanted kids. Even when we were younger, that's all he ever talked about. Then he got married and had his son Benji, and that was his whole life. Everything he did was for Benji. That's one of the tough things. He wasn't worried about dying, he was just worried about leaving Benji behind. I think he felt really guilty about it. The thought of everything Ben had to go through at the end, if he had had to do that at home, with his son there, that would have been terrible. If he'd had to have his final weeks at home, it would have been a very difficult situation. It's just so much for a kid of that age to comprehend. To have to see it all first-hand would have been shocking. I can't even think what would have happened if Phyllis Tuckwell hadn’t been able to take Ben. He stayed on the IPU for his last weeks, and they gave him around the clock care, 24 hours a day. Benji's 10 now, and he's a great kid. He's a lot like his dad; he’s a big character already. But being just six when your dad dies, that’s really tough. A child's brain trying to process that sort of information. It's just not fair, is it. Going through Christmases and things like that. One year his Christmas wish was to play with his dad again, and you think, how do you tell him that Santa isn’t going to be able to bring that?”
Ben died on 27th June, just two days after his birthday, and not long after Father's Day.
"That's obviously a really tricky time of year for Benji, because he's got his dad's birthday, his anniversary and Father's Day all in June. I always go and see him at Christmas and on his birthday. I took him a bike on Ben's birthday, because he didn't have one. He talks about his dad a lot; you can see how much it affects him. Ben's mum and dad have been absolutely amazing, bringing Benji up the same way they brought Ben up. I think Benji is going to keep coming into grieving again as he gets a bit older and understands things in a different way.”
As well as caring for our patients, we also support their loved ones, both during the patients’ illness and in bereavement. Benji has attended our ‘Little Rays’ bereavement group, a six-week after-school group which supports primary school aged children who have been affected by the death of a loved one. The group is organised by our Patient & Family Support team and led by our counsellors and volunteers, all of whom have experience of working with children. The sessions provide a supportive environment for children to explore their thoughts and feelings of loss through craft, play, games and storytelling. There, the children learn a range of emotional skills to help them manage and cope with their loss. The team also works with local schools, such as Benji’s, to help them understand how best to support their bereaved pupils.
After Ben died, James decided that he wanted to fundraise for Phyllis Tuckwell, to show his support for the care we gave Ben.
“I did the abseil down the Spinnaker Tower. I felt like I could do more, but it was hard to know what. I skydive anyway, so I couldn’t really do that, so I thought of running - and then I realised how much I hate running! I couldn't run and I have dodgy knees, from being a plumber. I had to get myself into the zone of thinking that's probably what I was going to have to do. Before I started, I wouldn't have been able to run a kilometre before I'd have had to stop. Ben and I used to train together, but that was all weights, never cardio. Cardio was the enemy!”
James set himself the target of running 300km over the month of June.
"I thought I'd aim for 10km every day, but I’d already managed to do the full 300km by 19th June. So then I said that I would run another 10km for every extra £10 donated. I've obviously got some friends who thought it would be funny to make me run much further, so that went straight up to another 1,300km that I had to do! It's good to keep building on it though. I never thought I'd be not only running, but running long distances. On Saturday, I did 46 kilometres, which is over 28 miles. In a sense, it's like a final gift from Ben, pushing me to do a bit of fitness. Somebody donated £70, so I want to do a 70km run at some point, but it's just finding the opportunity. I’m working the next few Saturdays, and it takes time to run that sort of distance.”
Our Fundraising team supported James in planning and fundraising for his running challenge.
"The first hurdle is, how do you do it in the first place? Phyllis Tuckwell’s Fundraising team told me how to set it up and gave me some pointers around telling people about the work they do, so that people donating knew how their money was going to help. The team send me messages to let me know they've seen my running updates and to say well done and thank you. I think it's good for me as well. It's brought me into a mentality of knowing that I can do it. I think once you tell yourself you’re going to do something, then you're going to do it; you just have to sit down and work out how you're going to make it possible. The tricky thing for me is timings, because the only time I have free to run is in the mornings. When I've been doing the longer runs, I've been getting up at 4am, because they take hours. Doing it early means that I’ve still got the day afterwards. So far, I’ve raised around £3,200, so I’m pretty happy with that. And I've got some friends who are saying they're going to donate when I think I've got to the end, so let's see what happens.”
Every day we need to raise over £30,000 to provide our services free of charge to our patients and their families. If you are feeling inspired to take on your own fundraising challenge to raise money for us, please do get in touch!
