My wife received care, love and kindness at the hospice

Jan and Steve Game were married in St John’s Church on The Green in Havering-atte-bower in 1976 - just a stone's throw from Saint Francis Hospice. Here Steve pays tribute to the loving wife, mother and nan, and to the team who cared and supported Jan and their family.      

Jan and I had been married for 47 years when she passed away at Saint Francis Hospice on 23 July 2023.  

She had successfully fought non-hodgkins lymphoma for twelve and a half years having multiple tests and treatments, including a Stem Cell transplant 8 years previously. Sadly, it was a very aggressive cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer) that finally beat her battered body into submission. 

Loving grandmother

She was a very kind, popular and lively lady, wife and mother and her love of table tennis was only surpassed by her love of children - all children but especially her 5 grandchildren, which would have been 6 had she lived just a few short months more. 
 
Her last period of illness started at the beginning of 2023. She was admitted to St Bartholomew's on 9th May and following her terminal diagnosis on 2nd June - our granddaughter’s birthday and the day a 100-year-old gentleman who Jan had cared for, also passed - she was transferred to the London Hospital.  

Jan had spoken to her cousin about going into the hospice very soon after her diagnosis as another of her cousins had suffered similar health issues and had died in the hospice several years earlier. She had been given such assurance about the care at the hospice that when I had whispered in Jan's ear the night before her transfer to Saint Francis Hospice that a bed had become available and she was being transferred the next day, she beamed a smile of relief and with peace of mind. 

‘The hospice is the best service you never knew you needed.’  

We arrived on Monday 10th July and that evening the bells at St John's (the church where we were married) were ringing out amidst the birds singing in the lovely grounds the hospice sits in. It was such a relief and the care, love, and kindness started from the time we arrived to the time Jan passed. 

Hospitals can be scary places but combine that with having a terminal diagnosis and I just can't imagine the fear my wife must have felt. I tried my absolute best to allay some of that fear and visited all day every day for 11 weeks, staying with her overnight for over 2 weeks. 

Volunteers

The volunteers are such wonderful, kind human beings. Margaret, the recently retired worker who had come back as a volunteer, was the first to offer the food menu and, every volunteer after that had the same warm welcoming way about them that I know made Jan's last days so comforting. I recall one volunteer saying, ‘The hospice is the best service you never knew you needed.’  

Despite her grave state of health, her face always lit up when she had visitors, and she was so grateful, polite, and positive to all the doctors, nurses and, others who attended her right up to the time she died on 23rd July - 7 hours before our 47th Anniversary. It was also just 10 days before her 70th birthday.  
 
The nurses and doctors showed so much compassion and kindness as well as total professionalism. Even after Jan died, they still treated her with kindness and respect, using her name to talk to her. Something I will never forget was a few minutes after Jan died, Tina a very kind nurse who had spoken with me the night before and washed Jan's hair - to help me as much as Jan - had cut some flowers from the hospice garden and placed them on Jan's pillow.  

I could speak volumes about the individual acts of kindness, including Dawn, a patient herself, and a lovely, lovely lady, who helped Jan when she couldn't press the button, to the many people who gave my wife help, love, kindness, and assistance. But that one act by Tina sums up the respect, love and, kindness in one simple act and showed me what the hospice and all the wonderful staff and volunteers within it represent. 

Memory Tree
 

It seems fitting that the hospice will celebrate its 40th anniversary of caring for local people on 23rd July - the first anniversary of Jan’s death. We have a leaf on the Memory Tree, and I bring our grandchildren to the hospice to see it. 

My sister met Princess Alexandra (who came to the hospice to formally launch the Memory Tree on 29 May 2014) when she visited the new United Dairies site in Salinas Lane Chadwell Heath in the mid-eighties. My sister was twice given a bed at the hospice but was too ill to travel. The last time was on Christmas Eve but she died the next day on Christmas Day 2022. Seeing the Princess's name there on the Memory Tree just made a connection. 

Fundraising

My son David plans to hold a fundraising event for the hospice every August to celebrate Jan’s birthday, which was on 2nd August. This August he’ll be organising a family fun day.   

My thanks to everyone at Saint Francis Hospice. I could never repay what you did for Jan, myself and all our family. We will never forget it.