KAREN'S LEGACY - HELP THE WISH AMBULANCE GRANT FINAL WISHES

PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY TO 'THE WISH AMBULANCE' that helped us achieve our Mum's final wish. Please help us ensure our Mum Karen's lasting legacy is kept alive. Every penny raised for 'The Wish Ambulance' will help many other terminally ill patients have final wishes and support families in achieving final dreams in Karen's Memory. 

Sadly, our wonderful Mum Karen passed away 13th July 2025 at just 63 years old. She was diagnosed with a horrendous cancerous brain tumour that took her from us in less than 8 weeks, just like that. We are utterly devastated and heartbroken by what has happened to our beautiful Mum in such a short space of time and want to ensure that her lasting legacy lives on by helping others.

It is hard to put into words how proud we are of her for facing everyday of this awful illness as a fountain of positivity with a beaming radiant smile, we have absolutely no idea how she did it. The only thing we do know is that one of the things that kept her going was us trying to achieve her final wish. When we were told that our mum had just a few months left to live, we all looked at each other and knew what we needed to do, her favourite place in the world was Tenby and we knew we had to get her there one last time.

The only problem was, time was against us and unfortunately the tumour was growing, her illness progressing and physical symptoms worsening so quickly, that the obstacles we faced to get her to the beach were getting more and more challenging by the day. First we hoped to be able to take her to the beach ourselves straight away, but she became severely disabled quickly, we then applied to various charities to help us, got gifted a holiday in a lodge near tenby with specially adapted facilities and packed the car all excited only to find out our Mum had become too unwell to go and heartbreakingly was now bed ridden.

Our world collapsed once again and for a little while we thought we weren't going to be able to achieve our dying Mum's final wish, a gut wrenching feeling in an already desperate situation. We composed ourselves and kept up the fight, we were not giving up. The oncologist looking after our Mum mentioned 'The Wish Ambulance' - a project within the Welsh Ambulance Services Charity aiming to help terminally ill patients to do exactly what we had hoped, achieve their final wishes. We applied and waited with baited breath. We knew hospital transport needed to be available and volunteers were needed. To our amazement, just a few days later we received a phone call confirming they could help, we cannot put into words what that meant to us. 

We are so grateful that The Wish Ambulance and its wonderful voluntary crew took us to the beach as a family. They got our Mum there on a wheeled stretcher, she stared out at the sea, smiled at the coloured houses and laughed at the seagulls, she enjoyed fish and chips and whippy ice cream and spent time at the beach with her children in Tenby, all her final wish boxes were ticked and it was one of most beautiful days of all our lives and of course the hardest, knowing it was our last trip together. We will never be able to express what it meant to us that 'The Wish Ambulance' and the two crew members volunteered to help us. 

They were our last hope and they exceeded our expectations in helping us achieve this for our Mum. This service needs to continue, it needs funding to expand and to help families in need. We know first hand what this fight feels like and how desperate you are as family members battling against a loved ones illness to get their last wishes fulfilled. What 'The Wish Ambulance' do is incredible, please give generously and ensure many more final wishes are granted in our Mum Karen's Memory. 

Thank you so much, Ourselves and 'The Wish Ambulance' are beyond grateful for your donations. Gemma & Matthew (Karen's Daughter & Son)