24 Dec 2018 Care

Christmas at Kirkwood - Deborah’s Story

Christmas is a very special time of year for all families, but particularly for those receiving care at the end of life. Our teams at Kirkwood make sure to go the extra mile to ensure that our patients and their families have the best quality time together possible, and make special memories each Christmas.

Meet Deborah. Deborah's partner Neil was admitted to Kirkwood's In-Patient Unit in December 2017 after being told that chemotherapy wasn't possible. During their time at Kirkwood, which included Christmas and the New Year, the care that Neil, his children and Deborah received had a huge impact on their lives. This is Deborah's story:

“We came in on the 8th December and it was a bit of a rush job. We’d been at the hospital for his [Neil's] first meeting about chemotherapy and we found out there was not a chance that he was going to be able to have it. So immediately he was transferred to Kirkwood.

“I don’t know what I was expecting when I came here, but when I did come it was a very pleasant surprise - even when you’re in one of the worst situations that we had going on at the time.

“It was a nice feeling. People think hospices are very sad places, but I didn’t feel that. I felt like it was, in a round-about way, a bit of a happy place because everyone makes the effort; especially at Christmas, when the trees are up, the decorations are up.

“Whilst we were here, Neil had two little girls, a five year old and a six year old, and she actually turned seven on Christmas Day. But on the, I think it was the first week we were here, they decided they were going to do something nice as Neil would always take them to a Santa’s Grotto every year and he couldn’t obviously do that as he was too ill so they decided to bring the grotto to him. We got the girls to come in for that and we had a Santa and an Elf, we had presents.

“I know the girls thought it was the best day ever. I don’t think they were much aware of how ill their dad was but for Neil it was a big deal that he was still able to do that and we were very grateful for that.

“I couldn’t, I still can’t, thank everybody enough for what they did for him, definitely. Especially with his birthday being at that time of year you know it was just a triple wammy, he’s not going to be here next year and it’s his birthday, it’s our last Christmas and our last New Year’s as well. Everyone just went above and beyond to make it as special as it could be for us in the circumstances."