Lucy’s Story
“Nothing could give us insight into the enormity of that diagnosis”
“We regard ourselves as being one of the luckier ones in the sense that our daughter, Lucy, lived for just over 6 years after the utterly devastating diagnosis of a GBM4 on Christmas Eve, 2010, when at 19 years old she returned home to Anglesey after her first term at university studying for a Speech & Language Therapy degree. Nothing could give us insight into the enormity of that diagnosis and hearing the consultant’s brusque and automaton manner of delivering her fate.
Somehow, and almost imperceptibly, amidst the utter gut-wrenching anxiety, trauma and devastation of those early months, we found ourselves approaching the anniversary of her diagnosis. In that time, she underwent aggressive radiotherapy and chemotherapy amongst spells at the excellent Clatterbridge Oncology Centre on the Wirral, whilst in between managing a family holiday in Jersey, organising a massive fund-raising walk for Teenage Cancer Trust and receiving the first glimmer of positivity with a very encouraging scan. For the first time we started to breathe a little easier and allowed some semblance of normality to return to our lives…
Months gave way to yearly anniversaries, punctuated at this stage by 6 monthly scans – we don’t ever want to repeat the build-up to those scans - but otherwise our time was given over to “living our lives” and, most importantly, supporting Lucy and giving her every opportunity to fill her time with activity, fun & friends/family time. At this point she wasn’t receiving treatment and it afforded her opportunities to travel, fund-raise, go to the 2012 Olympics (which she wasn’t expected to live long enough to see!), learn to play tennis, go to Wimbledon, take part in Ellen McArthur sailing holidays, return to university (although much closer to home), live independently and, beyond all expectations, gain a degree in 2015!!
At the end of that year a routine scan revealed that the tumour had reared its ugly head again – it was particularly shocking as at that stage she had no symptoms! Chemotherapy started instantaneously and, once again, enabled much of Lucy’s quality of life to return. 2016 was jam-packed with romance (yes, Lucy met her lovely boyfriend, Gavin) & travel, much of which Lucy was able to accomplish with friends. We also had two fantastically memorable family holidays.
Her health badly deteriorated towards the end of 2016 and she sadly died in March 2017, aged 25.
It is impossible to put into words what Lucy’s loss means to our family. The visceral pain and the ‘missing her’ will never abate. However, it’s imperative that we grow around it – if we don’t then her time with us will lose its impact and magnitude. She simply inspires everything that we do, and that gathers momentum with every passing year. Amongst the things we fill our lives with, our local tennis club in Bangor has undoubtedly been the most far-reaching and beneficial for us. Lucy had become very keen on tennis during her illness and as well as playing with us at Bangor Tennis Club, she had become an active member of Bangor University Tennis Club.
Shortly after she died, we set up the Lucy Beesley Shield to honour her name and this fun-filled tournament is played every year whilst raising valuable funds for Lucy related charities. We were very chuffed to raise £234 for the Tessa Jowell Foundation this May. ”