Inspirational Stories

The Unbreakable Spirit of a Key Volunteer

Karen McMillan is a young woman who works in the publishing industry.

In her limited spare time, she is a volunteer for North Shore Hospice. A trained writer, North Shore Hospice asked Karen if she would be happy to interview terminally ill patients and their families with the aim of writing personal stories for the newsletter that would illustrate the difference that Hospice makes in people’s lives. For more than three years she has been writing articles that have touched and inspired people.

“It is a real privilege to interview patients who are facing their mortality with such courage. They astound me.

They share their stories so their experiences will help other people. Terminally ill people often have a quality of life that is incredibly honest and special. It is a time in their lives that can be extremely meaningful. They give so much to other people.”

Karen first had contact with North Shore Hospice when her father died, but it wasn’t until she had to care for her terminally ill mother that she fully realised what wonderful work Hospice does in supporting patients and their family during such a difficult time.

“I’m just an ordinary girl, but cancer has had an extraordinary effect on my family. For nearly 15 years I experienced first my father and then my mother living with and ultimately dying of cancer in the prime of their lives.

I won’t deny how difficult this was. ‘My father thought Hospice was simply a place where people went to die. It was my mother who showed me that Hospice gives the gift of life. Hospice gave Mum a quality of life she would not have had otherwise in her final months.

To lose both my parents to cancer still seems incomprehensible. But now, rather than the tears, I remember the love and the laughter and the many lessons I learnt from my parents. They were both remarkable people With unbreakable spirits even when they were looking death squarely in the eye.”

Karen was so impressed by Hospice that she decided to become a volunteer. “I believe that Hospice work is about the most precious thing of all – life. What could be more important? I wanted to help in some small way if I could.”

Although she had never thought she would write a book about cancer, with a background in writing and her personal experiences, she decided to do it, and the result is Karen’s newly released book, Unbreakable Spirit: Facing the challenge of cancer in New Zealand. In the book she tackles the subject from twenty-five different points of view, including a number of stories that feature the important work that Hospice does in caring for the terminally ill. “Each person in the book gives me faith in humanity because of their unbreakable spirit in the face of a deadly disease. I’ve been inspired and touched by them.”

“I am privileged that so many people were willing to share their personal and very private stories with me,’ says Karen.

‘Their honesty and genuine compassion for other people is truly overwhelming. These are real people, just like you and me, who have been on an extraordinary journey in their lives and who have been brave enough to let us share their difficulties and fears, their hopes and triumphs.’

Judy Bailey, Patron of North Shore Hospice, wrote the following foreword to Unbreakable Spirit, which sums up our feelings also: ‘Thank you, Karen, for telling it like it is. This is a labour of love and it shows. It is also a ringing endorsement of the wonderful work that Hospice does. I know if you read Unbreakable Spirit, you will gain great strength from it.’