We’ve spoken to the hospital a lot about Jess’ passing. One of the hardest things to process has been that if there was another Jess, as things stood in spring 2020 anyway, they wouldn’t treat her any differently; in most cases the treatment plan that Jess had works. Sadly, we were one of the unfortunate few.
But knowing this has made it very hard too. Making something good come of something tragic has been really important to me. And those that know me well know that when I set my mind to something, I don’t give up!
We’re still in touch with the hospital and have talked about ideas we’ve got that may help other families, both practical ideas for patients and the hospital alike. This won’t obviously change anything for us, but it might help others if they are ever in our situation. We’ve recently donated some walkie talkies to the hospital, the idea being to help families stay connected with the ward when they move around the hospital. Initial feedback is these are working well, which we’ve been delighted to hear.
One less tangible legacy Jess has left us has been her outlook. We were amazed at how Jess coped in the face of adversity and never once waivered from the values she lived and breathed : Be brave, treat the present as a gift, and wholeheartedly try with everything you do I’m determined to keep Jess’ spirit alive and to this end , I’ve found myself trying my hand at new things- I’ve used poetry to help me process my emotions, but who knew I’d even find myself writing published poetry for other genres too! Click here to find out more,
I’m also trying to document, through this website, how we’ve coped and the type of things we’ve done. My hope here is that if anyone has stumbled across this page because they too have been through their own tragedy, they might find some inspiration on things they could do too. Some of this is about fundraising (which obviously plays a vital part in research and medical breakthroughs.) and some is about keeping Jess’ memory alive. Visit the memory page for some ideas.