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DonateLisa's Story
Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I wanted to share it with you, so that you could really see and feel just how important Compton Care is to our wonderful community.
I know some people will think of Compton Care as a sad place, but I can’t help but smile every time I think of how the charity helped my mom and our family when we needed it most. My beautiful mom, Margaret, was on end of life care, and the amazing team at Compton Care made sure her passing was one of dignity and beauty, and not fear as we had thought it would be.
Mum was a beautiful, kind and hardworking woman; she had always worked full time as well as bringing up her family until she was 78 years old. As a busy mom and grandmother, she very rarely paid attention to her own health.
Just as Covid struck, mom’s health started to deteriorate with what we thought was an overactive thyroid. Then one day she fell at home and broke her hip. She was taken into hospital and had an operation and stayed in for three weeks and following that she was taken into a rehabilitation centre to recover. This was a really hard time for us as a family as we were not able to go and visit her due to the covid regulations. They noticed in hospital that mom was getting more and more confused and was refusing to eat anything, so my sister, Helen and I were called in to assist her at dinner time to try and get her to eat.
When mom finally came home, she had lost so much weight we knew something was drastically wrong. During her stay in hospital, she had a slight chest infection so they called her for a scan of which the worst news was confirmed to us, she had secondary advanced tumours in her lungs, liver and spine and we were told she had six months at the most to live. Mom desperately wanted to stay at home, and as a family, we made a promise to her that we would care for her at home, and she would never be alone for the rest of her journey. It was a very daunting and scary time for us all going straight into palliative care, especially as I had never cared for anyone before, and I had no medical experience at all!
Thankfully, we were referred to Compton Care’s Community Team, and from the second they got in touch with us it felt like a massive weight had been lifted from our shoulders. We received so much support, from over the phone advice to visits Compton’s community team and night support team to enable my sister and myself to have a couple of nights where we were able to sleep knowing mom was in very safe hands!
As a couple of weeks passed, mom became so poorly that it became apparent that we were no longer able to care for her safely at home anymore. We were advised by the community nurses that she would need to be admitted into the Inpatient Unit at Compton Care. We knew how hard this was for mom as she so desperately wanted to stay at home, but from the second we all arrived at Compton, we were welcomed and reassured by all the team, and it was at that point we knew she was definitely in the right place for her and for us. Her room was lovely and had patio doors leading out onto a beautiful well-maintained garden. We took some of mom’s personal things in like family photos, her very old teddy bear and her favourite flowers, which made her room even more special and made her feel like she was surrounded by some of her home comforts.
Over the two and a half weeks that mom was in Compton, my sister and I stayed with mom 24/7, taking it in turns to stay each night as we both wanted to keep our promise to never leave her alone as she was so frightened of what was to come. Dad and lots of other family members came in every day and like us were all made to feel so welcome. Dad absolutely loved his hot chocolate from the vending machine and some nights we would even order a takeaway to be delivered to the door!
We were fully involved in mom’s care at Compton, but unlike at home, it was no longer scary and daunting as we had professionally trained staff who were right there with us to take away any fears we had and to step in when we needed them to. They were all so amazing to both mom and us, and we could not have done it without them.
On the morning of 25th April,2023 we realised that mom was losing her fight and was on the last stage of her journey. She passed away very peacefully holding my daughter’s hand and surrounded by the love of all her family and the team on duty at Compton. It wasn’t the scary and distressing experience we had feared, it was beautiful and spiritual.
Because of Compton Care, we were able to say goodbye to mom as her family and not as her carers as would have been the case if she had remained at home. I cannot begin to describe just how much easier this has made in accepting us losing her. Straight away dad was offered support as he really struggled with her loss and also his own health was not good, especially as it had all happened so quickly; five weeks was all we had, and because of the fabulous work Compton Care do, we were able to spend her final days making very precious memories, without the worry about coping with her medical needs.
As a family, we can’t speak highly enough of the all the team at Compton Care, they truly are fantastic, and with your help and support they aim to make their bedrooms in their inpatient unit even more accessible and inviting for families just like ours to stay in so they can spend very precious time with their loved ones in a home from home environment.
We miss mom every day, but we are so grateful for how we got to say our final goodbye to her and I’m sure I speak for so many other families in our community who have shared the same experience in Compton Care as we did, and are also able to smile when they think of their loved one when it was time to say goodbye.
Lisa (Margaret’s daughter)