A letter to… Our million pound boy
Dear Tom,
As the nurse carefully felt around your stomach, I saw her eyes widen. ‘I’ll need a second opinion,’ she said. I knew it was bad news. Aged 18, you’d been suffering stomach cramps and fatigue for months.
Doctors initially suggested IBS or stress, but now, in summer 2012, you were in agony.
And after countless tests, the most devastating news. Cancer.
You had soft tissue sarcoma – a tumour – in your pelvis. Incurable, inoperable. ‘We don’t know how long he has left,’ the specialist told me and your dad Richard, then 45. Everything changed. Instead of planning to go off to uni, you began chemo.
Every two weeks, you spent up to five days in a specialist teenage cancer unit at University College Hospital in London.
It was tough, but then so were you.
‘I’m going to be the first person to beat this cancer,’ I heard you tell friends on the phone.
It broke our hearts.
We quickly saw the devastating toll the treatment was taking.
You’d once been strong and active. Loved football, were the best goalkeeper.
But now you were tired, frail, weak.
And your brown hair was falling out.
Determined to take control, you suggested a sponsored shave to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Donations hit £1,000 within 10 minutes.
I couldn’t have been more proud.
Throwing yourself into more charity work, your drive to help others never faltered for a moment.
A sportsman’s dinner in March 2013 raised £25,000.
And in May 2013, you made a moving speech at a Mark Knopfler concert at the Royal Albert Hall, raising £7,000.
It was the biggest bucket collection the Teenage Cancer Trust had ever seen.
Still, your condition was deteriorating.
And that September, you were in more pain than ever.
Aching bones, fatigue, constant vomiting.
The cancer had now spread to your liver.
‘I can’t do this anymore,’ you confided one night.
The following month, an unusually high temperature saw you admitted to hospital.
And, there, doctors told us the tumour was now so big it was blocking your bowel.
Choking on sobs, I knew we’d run out of time.
Staying in hospital, we made you as comfortable as possible.
And two weeks later, on 18 October 2013, you slipped away.
Finally free from pain. By then, you’d raised over £175,000 for the Teenage Cancer Trust. A legacy that’d help so many others.
The charity work meant the world to you.
So on your 20th birthday, in February 2014, we founded The Tom Bowdidge Youth Cancer Foundation, to support young people with cancer.
We’ve since organised golf days and Christmas fayres, and by February 2020 we’d raised £1 million.
Your mission was to help as many families as possible.
And, today, that mission is ours.
An incredible legacy for an incredible boy.
The charity work meant the world to you
All my lov e, Mum x Nikki Colchester Bowdidge, 55,