Dedicate a light this Christmas - and help us continue to care for families like Leancha's.
Leancha Smith was only 31 years old when she passed away in the Northern Ireland Hospice In-Patient Unit last year. Initially, Leancha received Hospice at Home care in the home she shared with her husband, Christopher, and their daughter Meabh (8), before she made the brave decision to be admitted to the unit where she passed awayin August 2023.
Leancha’s husband, Christopher, shared their family’s story with us, and told us how Hospice provided support during this incredibly challenging time and in the tough months that followed Leancha’s death.
Leancha was a person that was just so full of joy, everyone that she met, she was just happy to see them.
" She didn’t choose to like someone and not others, she was the type of person that got on with everyone.
She gave everyone she met her full attention – she made sure everyone she met felt seen.
“Leancha was a youth worker, she worked for an organisation called YouthLink NI, their purpose, and in many ways Leancha’s goal in life was
always to bring people together – bring communities together.
It was then in March 2021 that we found out that Leancha was ill.
"She was diagnosed with a low grade serous ovarian sarcoma, which is a slow growing rare form of ovarian cancer. “From there we’d really been working with the City Hospital Cancer Unit, and she’d had various treatments – she had a full hysterectomy, and then she had an anti-hormone inhibitor, she had a few rounds of chemotherapy as well. The final treatment was a tablet which was helping on paper, all her numberslooked good, but her symptoms were ridiculous."
“It was at that point that we were introduced to Hospice Care."
"To tell you the truth, that scared me a little bit, because to me Hospice means end of life. But the Hospice nurses they came to us, in our home, and they took their time and they explained everything – they really helped ease my fears a little bit.
“Leancha had around four months of Hospice at Home care. The
nurses came out weekly to check her medication and her syringe
driver and make sure everything was ok. But she was also introduced to the idea of complimentary therapy when it was recommended that
she might benefit from reflexology.
She was really against the idea at first – she was very nervous about
people touching her feet! But one day she decided to give it a go. Mary Rose, the Complimentary Therapist came to visit and just put Leancha at ease. She had the most amazing experience with reflexology, helped her to over come all her nerves and gave her a real sense of peace that she had probably been missing for quite some time.
“It was around Easter time in 2023 that Leancha told me we needed to start thinking about moving to the In-Patient Unit. To me Hospice is a scary place, where people go to die and never come out of, but Leancha had other ideas, she showed me a video that was on the Hospice website, it showed the Hospice as a different place to what I had in mind."
Hospice offered Christopher, Meabh, and Leancha’s entire family and friend circle a sense of home, comfort and flexibility in her last few weeks.
“I remember once she was settled in Hospice Leancha said, “Right, invite everybody, tell them if they want to come and see me now is the time to do it." And they facilitated that here in a way that isn’t possible in a hospital setting.Me and Karen, Leancha’s mum, took it in turns to stay over every night, and towards the end they even set it up so that Meabh could stay with her mum every night. Even Ted, our family dog, was allowed to visit. And you know it was like he knew what was happening because he was on the bed, and he was so gentle with her and just gave her a little cuddle."
“Hospice were also amazing at making sure the children felt seen and that they understood what was happening during Leancha’s time in the IPU."
"I say children because Leancha also had a younger brother and sister (Daniel and Lucy) who were 10 at the time and they visited every day with their mum. We even had Meabh’s 7th birthday party in Hospice, and the staff were so good, asking Meabh what her favourite colour was and what cake she liked and whether she liked balloons. They really went above and beyond to organised that for her. If we’d not had the chance to come to Hospice, I’m not sure we’d have any memories like that from that time.
Leancha passed away in the In- Patient Unit on 31st August 2023.
“To me, Hospice is a place of solace, a place of peace. For our family Hospice has been a lifeblood. Hospice gave us the opportunity to celebrate and to love and to care for Leancha in her last weeks without having to worry about anything. I’ll forever be grateful for that.”
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