My beautiful, colourful and talented wife Rosy and I were together for 6 wonderful years. We got engaged one sunny, perfect day in early July. That evening Rosy’s back was really painful. When we got home she went to have it checked out, after several tests, scans and minor operations later we were told it was advanced, incurable appendix cancer.
It was horrible. Rosy was in the Royal Infirmary for a long time and her health went downhill, fast. By December she was in a terrible way. One of the hospital staff said to me, “You’re lucky, we have an amazing hospice here in Leicester.” I thought, “How is this lucky?”
We were referred to LOROS. I knew the name (you can’t live around here without seeing the red and yellow logo everywhere!). But I didn’t really understand what LOROS meant – until we came through the door. I think a lot of people are scared when they hear the word Hospice – but LOROS was just so different to anything I thought it would be.
We were greeted by nurses who immediately knew how to care for Rosy. We were shown into her own beautiful private room, with a view out over the vibrant gardens – Rosy loved being outdoors so seeing the plants, birds and squirrels was really important to her.
They gave her new medication that took away a lot of her pain. It was a transformation. I hadn’t seen Rosy smile for so long, but there she was, laughing and smiling – just like she used to.
We still wanted to get married – but had no idea if we could still do it. The nurses did everything they could to help us arrange a really quick ceremony (Rosy and I called it our ‘shotgun’ wedding) at home. Rosy’s friends came into the hospice to do her hair and make-up and some of our other friends decorated our house. The LOROS staff helped her to come home, just for the day, and we got married right in our living room. I couldn’t have been prouder to be able to call her my wife.
Rosy went back to the hospice that evening, and I went with her; they’d put a bed in her room for me. And that’s how we stayed. We had our one last week together at the hospice. I realise now that we were, indeed, ‘lucky’. We were lucky that, if this had to happen, we had this amazing charity with this beautiful place of care and these incredible nurses there to look after us. I’ve come to think of that last week in LOROS as the best week of our relationship.
Now, I’m raising money for the charity. Not for Rosy – her care was already paid for. But because there will be other wives, husbands, mums, dads, and they will need the same exceptional care in the future. And they will be truly lucky to have LOROS there for them too
