“The hospice is not here to add days to your life but to add life to your days”

Like so many others, Dee Mahandru presumed that once you went into a hospice, you never came out again. But Dee was living proof that with the right care, from the right people and at the right time, hospice care can and does make a wonderful difference to families living with a life limiting illness.

Dee Mahandru’s first experience of Saint Francis Hospice was in 2005 when his wife Julie and her family gathered to say their final farewells to Julie’s grandfather. 

But neither he, nor Julie, could ever have believed that just five years later, Dee would also become an in-patient at their local hospice.  Or that he’d be well enough to leave and come home, not just once, but three times.  

Fit, healthy and happy

 

At the age of 42, Dee was a fit, happy and active man who played badminton and tennis and had just started training for the gruelling Three Peaks Challenge.  A niggling stomach ache, however, first diagnosed as a hiatus hernia, led to some truly shocking news: Dee was told he had cancer.

After major surgery and chemotherapy, Dee was finally given the all clear and the couple spent the next 1½ years living life to the full and planning their new family.

Sadly, the cancer returned in September 2008 and this time, Dee was told, it was terminal.

“How long have I got?” Dee asked. “ About 12-18 months,” came the reply.

Julie was devastated and says she wanted to ‘fix him’ and keep him with her, but Dee just wanted one thing – to get married,  

So, on October 24th 2008, Dee and Julie, surrounded by family and friends, were married – just a few miles from the Hospice that a year later, was to become ‘home’ for them both for weeks on end. 

 

 

Dee was admitted to Saint Francis in November 2009 after more harrowing surgery and it was, as Julie says, “like being on a different planet!”  

Dee picks up the story: “As soon as we arrived we were told we’d be seen in two minutes and sure enough, two minutes later, two nurses came to see me, showed me to my room and encouraged me to relax and settle in before the doctor came to talk about my treatment and care. I was very frail when I arrived, but they were so attentive and I was treated very very well. “

Julie too found a wonderfully warm welcome at Saint Francis and stayed with Dee every single night that he was there.

 

 

Dee’s first stay at Saint Francis was for several weeks and the couple have nothing but praise for the way the staff managed his pain control. In fact Julie believes that that’s the main reason Dee was allowed to come home, saying that when it came to controlling his pain, Saint Francis transformed Dee’s life.  “They are obviously very specialised in that department which was fantastic because his pain was excruciating. He couldn’t sleep at night before going to the Hospice and now, over the times he’s been there they’ve sorted it out to the point that he can now get about 6 hours sleep a night.”

At that time, Dee – and Julie – had been in and out of the hospice four times and, as Dee laughingly said, “When Julie drops me off and goes to park the car, the nurses always ask, ‘where’s Julie? We’ve made up her bed.’

There’s no doubt that Dee’s whole quality of life was improved as a result of the expert care he received at Saint Francis but more importantly, his life was saved at one point too.

“Please keep me alive to see my daughter being born.”

Katy Skinner is the Hospice’s Clinical Nurse Specialist – someone Dee and Julie think is fantastic. “She’s absolutely brilliant. You just feel you can rely on her to get back to you and answer any questions you have– she’s like a shining star.”

It was this ‘star’ who noticed Dee was deteriorating rapidly one day last year and arranged urgent blood tests. These showed that, on top of everything else, Dee was suffering from renal failure.  

The odds might have seemed stacked against him, but the medical teams at the Hospice were confident that Dee’s condition was reversible and referred him straight to hospital where he had life-saving surgery. 

His survival was even more poignant because the couple had only recently found out that Julie was expecting their first child together. Julie says, “As well as the wonderful care he’s been receiving, I’m sure Dee’s positive attitude has kept him going. Every time he came into the Hospice he’d say, “Just keep me alive to see my daughter being born.  Well, now she’s born and he’s still here!”

If Hospice staff hadn’t recognised that Dee’s renal failure was a reversible condition, he simply wouldn’t have been alive to see the birth of his beautiful daughter Sophia.

The important point here is that the Hospice Medical Team are not just there to recognise when conditions are life limiting or when a patient is at the end of their life – they are there to recognise individual conditions and when a condition can be reversed to give a patient more time.

Precious time

 

This precious time was something that with Saint Francis’ help, Dee really made the most of.

During one visit to the Hospice for instance, he stayed in a large comfortable room that led directly into the Hospice’s pretty gardens.   He kept busy in the Day Hospice too and made a special pillow so that Sophia would have something personal to remind her of her daddy in years to come.  

Far from being a place to fear or worry about, Dee felt that Saint Francis Hospice gave him the chance to ‘add life to his days’ and enjoy meeting his beautiful little girl who, as Julie says, is “made from love”.

 

One year on and Julie has this to say:

“Without the fantastic help from Saint Francis Hospice Dee would not have met his daughter, and we would not have so many photographs of them together.  I am so glad that I am fortunate enough to be able to show them to her when she is older.  Without Saint Francis Hospice this would not have been possible and I will be eternally grateful.  Please support your local community hospice. They do such a fantastic job.”