20 Oct 2022 Community

Rob’s emotional story on his connection with The Kirkwood and why he decided to join the lottery

Robert Edmundson recently joined The Kirkwood’s Big K Lottery. He decided to join it after thinking about his one-time partner, Julia Carter, who was cared for by The Kirkwood at the beginning of the new millennium.  

After a being diagnosed with a brain tumour in her 30s, Julia sadly died in 2000. Robert has never forgotten the women he was engaged to and still finds it emotional to talk about her now.  

The 63-year-old was eager to tell Julia’s story after joining our lottery in her memory, and found the courage to speak to The Kirkwood the about her. 

He said: “In 1997 I was divorced, and I didn’t think I would meet anyone again, and then halfway through 1998 I met Julia. It became a whirlwind romance and after six months we got engaged.  

“We split up in 1999 but stayed in touch. Julia went to live back at home. I used to ring her mum to see how she was, and she would tell me how she wasn’t very well. Julia was complaining about bad headaches and so she went up to the hospital. They didn’t really do anything for her and so she just went home again, but they were getting worse and worse. Her speech was getting bad, and her appetite wasn’t there, so she went up to the hospital again. They took a closer look and did a scan and said she had a brain tumour, and it was an aggressive cancer.  

“They operated on her and took what tumour they could get out but most of it was inoperable. When she was back at home, I went to see her and we went out a couple of times, but she wasn’t in a good way.  

“She was then admitted into The Kirkwood and unfortunately, whilst the care there was second to none, she deteriorated very quickly.  

“She was so brave in fighting the tumour because that’s how she was. She was a lovely woman who had a real fighting spirit, but in the end the tumour took her.” 

Robert, who lives in Slaithwaite, is incredibly thankful to The Kirkwood for caring for Julia in the last weeks of her life.   

He said: “I couldn’t speak highly enough of The Kirkwood staff. It was amazing how they looked after her and her family. I saw first hand when visiting her at the hospice what they did for her, and it is something I shall never forget.  

“Over the last 20 years I have tried to put the painful memory out of my mind; not of her but of what she had to go through. It was painful for me to see her like that, and she was the one going through it.  

“Towards the end when I saw her at the hospice, she found it difficult to communicate and so in the last week she could just open her eyes when she heard my voice or someone she knew.  

“I joined the lottery because I have been thinking about Julia and I wanted to support the charity that looked after her so fantastically well.”