A dad of six died just months after one of his sons knew there was something wrong.
Brian Noone from Widnes was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in August 2016 with his family rallying around him to ensure he received care at home, and thanks to the support from Macmillan that became a possibility. 42-year-old James described the heartbreaking deterioration of his dad in a short space of time, with the death hitting him hard.
James told the ECHO : "I knew at the time there was something wrong because my mum and dad were being quite cagey about something and my dad, you could see he had deteriorated quite badly over the last six months but they were going for tests at the time. You could see something was amiss but I didn't know what it was.
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"My mum and dad then asked me to come round and my dad told me and it's horrendous. My dad was like my hero, he did anything for everyone, he could do DIY, he rebuilt engines, he was an electrician, he was so well-respected by his friends, peers and workmates and to get told you have this finite amount of time it was absolutely world ending.
"It was so hard to process and even though you get given the prognosis that it's terminal and there's nothing you can do you have this determination that it's going to get better and all of a sudden you become an oncologist and that was one of the things I struggled with."
The 76-year-old deteriorated rapidly and in May 2017 he died at home surrounded by his family. Now, five years on from his dad's death, James is doing 10 endurance events in hope of raising £10,000 for Macmillan. James, the owner of a validation consultancy, is currently at the halfway point of his charity campaign as he currently prepares to climb the largest mountain in Italy, the Gran Paradiso.
The dad-of-two explained the work that Macmillan did for the family, he said: "It was a heartbreaking situation and I was having my daughter at the same time as well so it was a very conflicting emotional situation as you can probably imagine. What happened was that we wanted to keep him at home and not in a hospice while he was really poorly.
"Macmillan provided us with all the information we needed to get beds and the stuff you need to have set up while he's at home. When they did all this they also sent nurses to come round and give him palliative care at home.
"After my dad died I struggled with it quite badly. I was very bitter about the situation because my dad was a really good man, he was helpful, and he was a church-going man. I really struggled seeing my dad deteriorate like that.
"It was a bad mental situation but my friends got me into endurance activities. When you go running for an hour it teaches you how to process things.
"You get a bit of quiet and don't have the noise around you. I found it very therapeutic and I managed to put aside all that bitterness."
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