Charity swim in memory of dad

A NEW mum will use the memory of her father to spur her on when she takes on a swimming challenge for the charity which helped care for him.

Eva Rees, from Fishguard in Pembrokeshire, has signed up for the 5k Swimathon in aid of Marie Curie, after care and support was provided for her father, Dr Laurence McManus, known as “Mac”.

Eva, who is mum to fivemonth-old Martha, signed up in January. She said: “Martha was three and a half months when I saw it and I was starting to look for something I could do which would give me a break from just being mum.

“I saw the ad for it in January – which the previous year was just the beginning of the end for my dad, because that’s when he got taken into hospital and he discovered that he had cancer in the oesophagus. He died in the May, so the timing is almost the same as when I started to train to when I’ll do Swimathon.”

It was between January and May that the family received support from Marie Curie nurses overnight at home.

“There was a whole team of different professionals that we had visiting and caring for Mac. Marie Curie nurses came overnight, so my mum could have some sleep,” said Eva.

“It helped massively. He was a very, very practical man my dad, so he had spoken to my mother and they had discussed at length how we wanted things to play out. He’d had a course of radiotherapy down in Singleton, and he was adamant he was not going to stay in the hospital, which he didn’t. But that would not have been possible without the Marie Curie care and support. The district nurses were all part of the process too.

“My main training session I do on a Tuesday evening. I am swimming about 2,000 metres at the moment,” said the 40-yearold. “It’s a coached session, so it’s at quite a fast pace with very little break, so I know that if I can do that with a front crawl, I’ll be able to do the longer lengths.

“I didn’t want to do something that was easy for me. I can swim 2k quite easily, but swimming 5k will be hard for me to do, and I wanted a challenge.

“Mac taught all three of us to swim, so it’s definitely a nice thing to do in his memory. When you’re in a pool, I find it kind of a therapeutic time, so I think about him when I am swimming, it’s quite a nice time to be thinking about it.”

To donate, visit www.just g i v i ng. c om/ f undraising/ swimathon-2017-EVASWIM5k