Leukaemia Care
We were, as a family, greatly supported by the organisation Leukaemia Care.
In return, published articles about Jane always carried Leukemia Care or Leukemia Research contact details, as this one does below, so that people might make donations. Considerable amounts were raised over the years for both charities. Friends related how packed tube trains in the evening rush hour of December 13, 1997, showed people all reading the same page: Jane’s story.
Leukaemia Care kept in touch throughout the ongoing treatment, always just a phone-call away for advice and help. They were very reassuring when Jane had bouts of indescribable pain. ‘Everything is in pain except my eyebrows’ she said once when we had to rush her to hospital to stay overnight on a morphine drip. I remember all four of us had to grab an arm or a leg to carry her downstairs: she could hardly move for the pain.
The society promised a free caravan holiday for Jane in the summer of 1993 when Jane, hopefully, would be in total remission. Total remission was never to happen but the society very kindly insisted that the family take the holiday anyway to assist in their own recovery. In the rawness, shock and vulnerability of grief, we were grateful for that. The scenic delights of Norfolk were a much-needed balm.
The holiday proved a memorable one in other ways with what can only be described a series of thought-provoking, synchronistic, benign paranormal events. When we arrived at the caravan site, checking in at the reception desk which was next to the entertainment hall, we heard the band strike up You’ll Never Walk Alone. This song had been sung by the school choir at Jane’s funeral. When we checked out a week later, the band again struck up the song as we left. Looking back, that and many other similar events seem unbelievable now but they did happen and were well documented in early published accounts. Perhaps grief sensitises us to what otherwise may go unnoticed.
Donations can be made to Leukaemia Care via the following link: