Thanks for taking the time to visit our just giving page.
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.
We are raising money for The East Cheshire Hospice to show our gratitude for the care and support given to our brother Gary and his family during his time in their care.
It costs £7500 per day to run the Hospice and they rely on donations to enable them to carry out their amazing work.
Our challenge is to hike up Snowdon on 27th April 2024 the day before what would have been our beautiful mums birthday.
Our group of hikers vary between experienced to complete novices the youngest of our group being Gary’s son Isaac who is just 9 years old.
Our journey began on 24th August 2021 when Gary aged 42 had an emergency operation to remove a blockage from his colon. A scan sadly revealed that cancer had spread to his liver and lymph nodes the outlook was grim with only a 15% chance of surviving 3 months, we were all utterly devastated. After recovering from his surgery at an amazing rate Gary was allowed to go home on 31st August.
The first of many rounds of chemo began on 27th September, we were all amazed by his strength, determination and courage, Gary kept us going as much as we all kept him going. This all happened during the time of Covid which took precious time away from us being able to be together in case we passed Covid onto him. During this time Gary was continuing to work on his dream of creating an alternative social network which was launched on 13th November 2021.
A scan on 10th January 2022 revealed that the chemo was working well with an improvement shown to the tumours on his liver, we were all incredibly relieved.
Fast forward to 6th June 2022 and we had more positive news from a second scan, there was now a potential chance of operating on his liver.
Surgery was scheduled for 15th August at Manchester Royal, needless to say the day felt like it was a week long. We finally got the news that surgery had gone well, they had removed 60% of his liver along with 5 tumours. Just a week later Gary returned home with another battle scar to add to his collection.
After the success of this surgery it was really looking possible that Gary, Neung and Isaac would get their wish to spend Christmas in Thailand with Neung’s family, sadly this wasn’t to be as Gary’s health declined making it impossible to travel.
On 16th November Gary was interviewed by a gaming magazine regarding a project that he had started on Sega Master System, during his illness he somehow just kept going doing whatever he could to have a purpose and a focus.
December 2022 our beautiful, kind and considerate mum treated the whole family to a meal out, we suspected this would be Gary’s last Christmas with us but little did we know that it would also be our mums last Christmas.
On 2nd February 2023 Gary received the news that despite chemo the cancer had spread to his lungs, a change of chemo and a crossing of fingers followed.
28th April 2023 was mums 70th birthday, we had a family party at home followed the next day by an evening out to see a show and a stop over in a hotel. She had no idea we were joining her to further carry on her birthday celebrations the look of surprise on her face will remain with us always.
We had no idea how precious the memories of this weekend would become.
The next scan on 30th June showed that the tumours were growing which explained the immense pain that Gary was suffering from. His consultant managed to get access to a new type of chemo. It was time to cross our fingers again.
On 19th July due to feeling unwell mum was admitted to hospital, following this she had a few trips in and out whilst they tried to get to the bottom of her illness. Our mum sadly passed away on 11th August due to heart failure, we felt privileged to have been by her side. We were all in deep shock that we had lost the most influential and loving person from our lives.
At around the same time Gary received the news that the tumours on his lungs had grown, however it wasn’t all bad news as it was suggested that he may qualify for an alternative treatment that had had a positive outlook for other patients. During his whole journey Gary was working to survive as long as possible in the hope that there would be a breakthrough in cancer research which would give him his life back.
On 29th September it was Ashs graduation in Manchester (Gary’s brother) we were all so thankful that Gary was able to join us to celebrate, however a huge hole was left that day where mum should have been, we all missed her so much, she would have been absolutely in her element and so proud.
We knew that time was running out and wanted the opportunity to make as many memories as possible so we booked a weekend away in a huge holiday home for the whole family at the end of October, however as the holiday time was approaching Gary’s health really declined, we were very concerned how he would manage to travel the distance to Anglesey when he struggled with a car journey across town.
Determined not to let Isaac his son down he insisted that the weekend go ahead, we’re so glad that we listened to him as we have so many lovely memories from this trip away.
The next milestone for Gary was his birthday on 27th November, he was so poorly and we really didn’t think that he would make it, again he proved us all wrong, however not many days after his birthday he arrived into the care of East Cheshire Hospice.
The next milestone was Christmas.
The care and support in the Hospice was second to none for Gary, Neung and Isaac. They organised for 3 build a bears for Issac with recordings of his dad’s voice in them, for Neung they arranged a pendent to put some of Garys ashes in. For the rest of the family they arranged a Christmas get together complete with a visit from Santa. All paid for by donations from kind hearted people.
As a family we can never begin to thank everyone involved in Gary’s care and for the support given to us all in the most difficult of times.
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our friends that have given us a shoulder to cry on and picked us up when the going was tough some of whom are here to support us again by scaling Snowden.
After his courageous fight Gary lost his battle on 24th December 2024 we couldn’t have been prouder of him he was so inspirational.
To say we are heartbroken by the loss of these 2 beautiful souls that we were lucky enough to have in our family doesn’t even begin to cover it
In loving memory of our beautiful mum (Chris) and our Superhero brother Gary
Thank you for reading our story, please help us to help another family going through the darkest of days.