Inspirational Stories

Survivor of Double Tragedy now a Hospice Volunteer

A caring, generous woman in her early seventies, Helen Findlay knows first hand the pain of loss. Her first husband died suddenly of a heart attack when he was only forty-two years old. Her second husband, Colin, died three years ago after a long battle with cancer. But rather than giving in to grief, this vital woman is now a North Shore Hospice volunteer. ‘I wanted to give back,’ says Helen.

Born in India, Helen moved to England in 1947. There she trained as a nurse and married her first husband. ‘We lived there for twelve years and my three children were born there. But we couldn’t get used to the cold winters in England so we decided to come to New Zealand. We arrived in 1963 and loved it from the moment we got here. New Zealand has been really good to my three children. They are all married and I now have five grandchildren.’

After the sudden death of her first husband, Helen had the demanding task of raising three children while working as a nurse. She was a widow for eleven years before she met Colin. ‘Colin’s wife had died two years before of cancer. We met and just clicked. We had eighteen years together and it was just wonderful.’ Colin was first diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1995. After a biopsy he chose radiotherapy - and for some time everything looked well. ‘He thought he’d beaten it until we went on a cruise and he had a pain in his back. When we got back the doctors found the cancer had got into his pelvic bone. They treated that with radiotherapy but eventually the cancer came back and we found it had gone to his liver.’

The oncologist delivered the terrible news to Colin that he was terminally ill.

Colin was adamant that he didn’t want to end up in hospital. And he didn’t like the idea of Hospice either. ‘He had the idea that Hospice meant death, which a lot of people think. So I promised him that as long as I could I would look after him at home. Eventually I had to get help and the wonderful nurses from Hospice came. The thing was I could call them at night. I never had to, but you feel very supported. I couldn’t have kept him at home without their help because eventually he became quite heavy to lift. I promised him that he wouldn’t go to hospital and the wonderful nurses at Hospice allowed me to keep that promise.’

‘During Colin’s last weeks it was a special privilege to be able to nurse him at home - often I was almost unable to carry on physically and emotionally as I watched a clever, vital person lose control of mental and body functions. Then the lovely Hospice nurses would appear. It gave me the chance to escape to the bathroom and cry.’ Helen credits the Hospice, not only for helping her with the care of her dying husband, but also with the follow-up support since.

‘I was in a terrible state after Colin died. I was encouraged to go to Hospice and talk to the grief counsellor. I said I wasn’t the sort of person to have counselling and sit and talk about how I felt. But then I thought since all the nurses had been so kind that I would go. The family had always said, “Don’t cry, don’t cry” and I used to try to be brave. The counsellor just let me cry and I felt really great after talking to her.’

Helen felt she wanted to give back to Hospice for all the help they had given her. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

She started with volunteering one afternoon a week and is now doing four.

‘I help in the kitchen and I help on reception. And I love being there, they are all so marvellous. I’m still mourning my husband and I hate being alone, so I like to keep busy, and if I’m busy then I’m fine. But if I’m not busy then I go to pieces. I get quite miserable on my own, so this makes me get dressed, put my make up on and come out. It is helping me to manage.’

Helen is highly impressed with the work that Hospice does and is delighted she is now a volunteer.

‘People say to me “How can you work in such a morbid place?” But it’s not like that. It’s very cheerful. People can have the wrong impression of Hospice. It is very different from when I was training in England. Then when a person was dying, you would move them down the wards, away from the other patients. Back then, we couldn’t provide the level of care that the Hospice does now.’

Karen McMillan