Chrissie & Simone's story

Two years ago, Simone thought she was about to lose her mum, Chrissie.
Chrissie, then seventy-four, lived with partial paralysis and dementia, and woke up one morning, unable to move  After multiple hospital stays, clinicians told her family that Chrissie needed end-of-life Hospice care. Although Simone was devastated, she was relieved that her mum could have a bed close to home at The Hospice of St Francis.

“Mum’s a very calm, placid and private person,” Simone said. “In hospitals, it’s just manic and she had stopped eating anything. At the Hospice, Mum was given the time and attention she needed. People spent time talking to her; the environment was peaceful.”

The attentiveness of hospice staff stood out to Simone. “Even though Mum has dementia, they really took her opinion into account. They cared about what she liked to eat. They had a board on the wall showing her likes and dislikes. That was really important when she was trying to eat again: having things she actually enjoyed.”
With the encouragement of our nurses and carers, Chrissie did start eating again and soon regained some strength.

Senior Staff Nurse Viv helped the family arrange a place for Chrissie in a local care home (where Chrissie recently celebrated her 77th birthday). “The support the Hospice gives to families is huge,” Simone said. “They provided us with so much practical support.”

Now, Simone is preparing to Trek the Sahara along with her two best friends to raise funds for us. “We all think so strongly about the impact the Hospice had on Mum,” Simone shared. “It helped her be here two years longer than we thought she was going to be. Until you see it first-hand, you don’t realise exactly what they do [at the Hospice]. It’s made such a difference. I feel fortunate that we’re able to have the hospice on our doorstep.”

If you’d like to support Simone’s fundraiser: https://www.justgiving.com/page/simone-legg-1