On the 28th of February, at 9:30am, someone incredibly and irreplaceably dear to me passed away.
Having fought, and exceeded the prediction of his doctors of only having 2 years left, my dad left us after a five year long battle against a wicked cancer known as Myeloma.
Myeloma is a type of blood cancer; it produces bad white blood cells that then cause problems in the body. Myeloma is terminal. There aren’t many treatments for it, and what few treatments there are, they won’t get rid of the cancer.
The majority of available treatments involve some type of transplant. For my dad, he had a number of Stem Cell transplants. Stem Cell Transplants is a process where they kill off a person’s Stem Cells in their bone marrow and then regrow them, either from healthier stem cells harvested from the patient, or from another individual. The downside to this type of treatment is that the patient has no immune system while they undergo this therapy. What this means is the patient could die from something as simple as a cold, as their body has no defence to resist viruses.
This is where the Bracken Ward come in. Working as a part of Derriford Hospital, they provide and ensure comfortable isolation units for patients. Before this ward was constructed, patients occupied tiny pokey rooms with little else afforded to them during their stay, and in the instance with my dad, no windows or easy access to natural light while he was in isolation.
The new isolation ward is equipped with big, spacious rooms with en-suite bathrooms, Televisions and access to consoles and large bay windows. The patients have a tremendously better quality of life in these rooms. It makes a HUGE difference, and this means a lot to the patients and their families as well.
But, the Bracken Ward is much more than a few fancy rooms for patients. The nurses working there, and the lead consultant Hannah Hunter, become like additional family members to the patients.
I know they loved my dad, this is what became the most important thing to me. When my dad was sick, and he knew he was dying, he was meant to have gone to a hospice. But Hannah, despite that Bracken Ward is a transplant isolation ward, opened their doors to my dad and allowed him to spend his last few days with the people he knew, the people he trusted and in a place of comfort and familiarity.
The fact that those at Bracken Ward not only go above and beyond for their patients, care so much for them, and helped my dad in every way they were able over the years, I want to give them something back.
A huge and heartfelt thank you, in memory of my dad. So, please help me reach my goal, to let them know how much their work matters.
~ Phorxy