It is not all about bedpans and bed baths...

I don’t know what my Dad, Ches Peck, was up to a year ago today, but I can have a good guess.

At that point he lived on a small holding in Wales. He would have got up late. He would have then sat down and had coffee, toast and marmalade, probably not the diabetic friendly stuff he should have had, while he reread yesterday’s paper and laid out his pills.

He then would have headed to his quad bike and gone to the yard to spend an age feeding round his animals, spending a few moments to talk to each of them as he went. Then back to the house for another coffee and then general tinkering in his shed or the yard for the rest of the day – interspersed with more coffee breaks, an attempt to get a bit further ahead on the crossword and a quick look on Facebook marketplace to see if there was “anything worth having”.

As soon as it started to get dark, it was time to feed round again – before lighting the fire, having a glass of white before dinner, a glass of red with dinner and then, if the mood took him, a hefty glass of Famous Grouse – made equal parts whisky and water.

That was the rhythm of Dad’s life ever since he had a heart op that didn’t go quite to plan nearly 15 years ago. That was the Dad that I knew, and that was the Dad that I loved.

That rhythm, however, was completely thrown out of the window at the start of 2023. Just to give you the edited highlights:

• January 1 – Dad and his partner of 30 years decided to go their separate ways.
• January 20 – I drive to Wales to bring him back to Derbyshire. After a good life down there, we leave with anything we can fit in the back of our car, a few thousand pounds and a 16 year old dog called Ceri.
• February 7 – we pick the keys up to his new flat just round the corner from my house. He moves in a few days later and is excited. We also pick up a mobility scooter – it is not a quad bike, but “it will do son”.
• February 21 – He is not feeling too good. We take him to the doctors. Doctor asks how quickly we can get him to hospital and shortly afterwards he is diagnosed with aspirated pneumonia.
• March 8 – things aren’t progressing as they should. They have found “a shadow”. Family meeting. It might be cancer.
• March 15 – Family meeting. They think it is cancer.
• March 23, 10:30 am – Family meeting. It is cancer. There is a tumour 31cm down his oesophagus that is aggressive and sizeable. Dad isn’t a candidate for treatment.
• March 23 11:30am – Dad jokes start. The tumour is quickly nicknamed Tony – because we hope it is the T’ony one he has got.

So that was it – in a few short months we had gone from planning his new your life, to facing the reality of the end of it.

As Dad’s newly appointed carer, the phone calls quickly start. Lots of people with confusing job titles, giving lots of advice and asking lots of questions. It was overwhelming. The daft thing is that, at that stage, the emotions weren’t about Dad’s mortality. The pressure was about making this the best end we could for him. And that is not something you can rehearse or practice – you have one chance to try and get it right.

It was at that point that I remember sitting down on a bench one day and just crying - because I had no idea what to do or how to do it. That feeling of helplessness is paralysing.

In all of this, someone from the NHS rings to say Dad has been referred to Blythe House Hospice as they run a “Living Well with Cancer” programme. I don’t hear the words living well, but I do hear the word Hospice. I thought that was the end of the road and the only discussions from here on in would be about bed baths, sheet changes and tea making.

That misconception was quickly shattered. You soon realise that the work that the amazing people at the Blythe House do is so much more than personal care. They quickly became our safety net, our advice giver, our friend, our pick me ups, our champion and our calm head. In our darkest hour they never let us down, they always listened and they genuinely cared.

And, because of them, we were able to try and eek every ounce of life out of death as Dad’s last chapter commenced.

That is not an easy thing to say. Before you are faced with someone you love dying, your heart tells you that you will help them live every moment and sod the consequences. But, when that moment is there, you are also fighting with yourself as you want to wrap them in cotton wool and try and keep them as long as possible.

But, with Blythe House’s help, we managed to find that balance.

One day, for example, just a few weeks before he died, Dad wanted to see the red squirrels at Peak Wildlife Park again. Now, taking three kids, a visibly dying man and a litre bottle of super strength morphine to what is essentially a childs’ tourist attraction does not come without its challenges and stresses. We could only go as Blythe House was on the end of the phone as we got ready and there for us when we got back.

When Dad was in hospital, we talked about a farewell trip to Angelsey. The morning we went my sister, wife and I sat round my dining room table and asked ourselves what the flip were we doing taking a dying man on holiday. Blythe House’s encouragement, advice and support was the difference between us going and not going.

It may sound daft, but when Dad was having a good day and we could sneak in a pint at the pub, they would rearrange everything if it was needed to make it happen. That meant a great deal.

The biggest compliment I can give is that they didn’t just make death bearable, they helped make it memorable.

And when things really started to go bad…they were there.

When the regular visits from the Health Care Assistants started, each one of them brought humour and energy into Dad’s flat with them – and that stayed long after the visit had finished. In an atmosphere where the prospect of death hung heavy in the air, it was the life and humanity that they brought with them, not their ability to do bed baths, that meant the most.

And that is why, for that intense period of time, it felt like the people from Blythe House became an extension of our family.

We even gave them nicknames. You have already met the Hey Jude. Penny, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of what to do in any situation, became Wikipenia. Helen once kept Dad up to two in the morning making him laugh with stories of her dating exploits while she cared for him. She, for reasons we won’t go into now, became Vegas Helen. Dani, the person who arranged visits, which were the glue that held our lives as carers and our “other lives” together, became Addanihesive.

The lovely Posh Rachel, who only got that name as she had been to some horse trials, would crack open a beer for Dad at 12:00 and play The Doors at full volume if that is what he wanted. A night nurse called Angelsey Ellen, who simply had a house in Angelsey, didn’t bat an eyelid when she asked Dad where he wanted her that evening, and Dad gave one of his trademark grins as he patted the air mattress next to him.

And then there was Deck Chair Mary – a lady who only got her nickname the night that Dad died just five months ago.

My sister and I were both there that night he went. Mary, who had spent quite a few nights caring for Dad already, was on duty. Concerned that there might not be enough seating for her and us around the bed– she rocked up with a deck chair – and it is from there that she held our hands as we held Dad’s as he went on his way.

After Dad had gone and the funeral director had departed, I sat in his flat alone for a couple of hours and didn’t know what to say or do. I just sat. I then walked home, went through the front door of my house and saw my wife. In the enormity of all the emotions I felt, I could only get three words out. They were simply, “We did good.”

Looking back, they are a strange choice of words. Those three words could have been “I miss him” or “He has gone” – but they weren’t. They were “We did good”. Because of my sister, my wife, my family – but crucially Blythe House – we had given Dad the death he had wanted. He was at home, surrounded by pictures of animals and his family. It was the best of ends, and I took huge comfort from that.

That would have not happened if it wasn’t for the Blythe House. There also would have been no last trips to Angelsey, there would have been no last pints in the pub, there would have been no squirrel visits and there would have been a lot less laughter.

Writing this has been hard, probably even harder than Dad’s eulogy. That was about his life, whereas this is about that final chapter. But Blythe House is a very special organisation who my family owe a great deal to. They do very special things at a time which none of us really want to think about. But when they are needed, they are there.

And knowing that people like Wikipenia, Hey Jude, Posh Rachel and Deck Chair Mary exist in this world is actually pretty life affirming. They are remarkable, and I can never thank any of them enough.

So, if we can help hospices support some other families who have no idea what the next 12 months may bring, then let's flippin’ do it. Because if that family can sit there and can say something like “We did good”, thanks to the support of hospices like Blythe House, then we are doing a good thing.