<div>First and foremost, this goes against every grain of my parent’s approach to life but there comes a time when ‘pride’ should come second.
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<div>Just over two weeks ago, we received the worst possible news, that my mum would not be beating the cancer she has been fighting for over a year. We hope she has as much as two years left, though we’ve also been told it could be considerably less.
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<div>My mum’s (Mel’s) fight actually started about 22 years ago when she was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. After suffering considerable chronic pain, she eventually, 13 years ago, got so bad that she had her colon removed. This operation unfortunately led to pneumonia and mum was rushed to hospital via ambulance and put into an induced coma for almost two weeks.
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<div>Dad (Chris) who never left her side was told to prepare for the worst as it was ‘50-50 whether she’d make it through the night’. We will be eternally grateful that we didn’t lose our mum that night, we’ve had 13 years with her that we may never have had if things had gone differently.
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<div>Eventually my mum grew stronger and between them, working 60-hour weeks, built their food business from scratch. It was just the two of them, working non-stop, as they have their whole lives. Then Covid hit and again their amazingly hard-earned savings were wiped out.
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<div>That’s when they decided to move to my mum’s birthplace in Devon and ‘start again’.
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<div>For almost two years they worked ‘all the hours’ but they were so happy being able to work together every day in their own business in beautiful Devon.
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<div>That’s when my mum was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer. There was a chance she could beat it with chemotherapy, radiotherapy and a very big operation and her battle began again.
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<div>My parents kept but closed the business down (they had no choice as my dad became my mum’s full-time carer with almost daily trips to hospitals for scans, blood tests and cancer treatment). They kept paying considerable power costs and for equipment they had invested in, in the hope they would be able to reopen when my mum recovered. Again, it broke our (mine and my sister’s) hearts to see all their hard-earned savings just disappear over the last year.
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<div>They were heartbroken when they had to let go of the business just a few months ago. But that paled into insignificance when two weeks ago they were told the cancer had spread, an operation wasn’t feasible (the only possible ultimate cure), and that my mum was now on ‘end of life palliative care’.
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<div>When my sister and I were told this two weeks ago we were, as you can imagine, in shock and devastated.
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<div>So that’s why I’m asking for your help now. They may have a year left together, hopefully two. But again, over the last year they’ve lost everything trying to stay afloat, paying for treatment when it meant they could move things on that little faster.
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<div>I want to help them get back financially to where they were when this horrible disease hit. So they can feel they can spend the last months and hopefully years doing what they would like to be doing, they deserve that so much.
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<div>My mum is one of the kindest, most considerate people you could meet and she’s loved so much by everyone who knows her. She puts others ahead of herself every time and she’s the best mum in the world.
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<div>If you can help, my sister and I would be eternally grateful and if you can’t that’s ok too, I know these are tough times and thank you for reading their story. If you’re able to share this link also, we would be appreciative. Thank you so much.
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