Leeds hospices' 40th anniversaries: Dad pays tribute to '˜perfect' care given to his late wife

Lydia Peel was only 40 years old when she lost her battle with a rare blood cancer called myeloma in September in 2017.

The mum-of-three had been diagnosed with the condition seven months earlier, in February, after suffering symptoms including severe headaches and a swollen tongue.

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Doctors initally gave her up to seven years to live but when all treatments failed to work, they had to revise their estimate to just two weeks.

Husband Dan, 27, said: “Lydia was just a very positive person. When they said she had seven years to live, she said ‘right I’m going to live for 10 years’. Just to prove them wrong. When they gave her two weeks, she said ‘I’ll live for four weeks’. And I think she did.”

“She was so strong,” he added.

Lydia was discharged from hospital and the family - including Lydia’s sister Beth, Dan, their boy Rudy, now four, and Lydia’s two older sons Izaac, 22, and Jonah, 21 - were sent on a week-long holiday to a cabin in the woods by the Willow Trust but her condition continued to deteriorate.

Dan said: “By this point she was blind. Just before she was discharged she lost her eyesight. That was massive. To not be able to see her boys again was very difficult.”

Not long after, nurses from Wheatfields Hospice - answering a desperate call from Dan at 1am - came to their home in Headingley and, with the help of an on-call doctor, a decision was made with Dan to admit her.

She was there for nearly two weeks, with Dan by her side every day and her boys visiting after they had finished work or, for Rudy, after nursery.

“There are no words to describe how amazing and how perfectly they treated Lydia. Every single little thing was no problem. They made sure she was comfortable, they would come and talk to her, they would spend time with her.”

He described the time a chef visited their local deli to grant Lydia’s wish of eating a special cheese again.

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“Nothing was too much trouble. If you asked for something, they would get you it. If you needed something quickly they would sort it.

“They were so, so caring. I remember Lydia once pulled one of the nurses over her bed, suddenly, and gave her a cuddle - I think she thought it was Rudy - for about five minutes. The nurse just went along with it and cuddled her back.”

He added: “She was in no pain or distress or unhappy when she passed. She was so peaceful and well-looked after.”

Dan said he has started a memory box for Rudy, packed with photo albums and pictures.

“We go through it every night or every other night. With every picture, I give him a little story about what was goin gon that day and how much his mummy loved him.”

He said over 400 people attended Lydia’s funeral.

“She has left a massive hole. She was a go-to person for her friends. It’s difficult without her, no doubt about it,” he said.