Cancer-hit mum hid herself from family for a year
Daughters shocked to find she hadn’t long to live
WHEN Lisa Dalloway realised she hadn’t seen her mum Jackie for a while, she knew something wasn’t right.
The 48-year-old had been making up excuses not to go out and would mostly only speak to her family on the phone.
The mum hid herself away for around a year before her loved ones received some earth-shattering news earlier this month.
Jackie had cancer - and it had spread to every part of her body.
Tragically, doctors knew the mum-of-four didn’t have long left to live.
Her family played it hourby-hour until she passed away just after midnight on October 18.
She leaves behind devastated daughters Lisa, 31, Beckie, 26, Lyndzie, 21 and Chrissie, 17.
Teaching assistant Jackie, who was born and raised in Middleton, had previously fought breast cancer eight years earlier.
Following surgery and weeks of radiotherapy, she went into remission.
But the gruelling treatment took a huge toll on the mum’s mental health, telling her family she would rather let the cancer “take her” if it ever returned.
Her eldest daughter Lisa now believes Jackie knew her cancer had come back and chose not to tell anyone.
“I think she knew,” mumof-two Lisa, who lives in Royton.
“She had spiralled into depression and basically shut the whole world out and thought, ‘I’ll let it take me.’
She didn’t handle [her first diagnosis] well mentally. Even though she recovered, she said she couldn’t go through it again.
“She just kept her distance from everyone.
“We would see her every now and again and speak to her on the phone.
“But physically seeing her was not that often because she made up excuses saying she didn’t feel well and not to come to the house.”
The family first knew something was wrong when a family friend rang Jackie an ambulance on October 12.
Jackie had phoned the neighbour saying she needed help.
When the friend arrived at Jackie’s home, she knew she was seriously unwell.
“She said she looked really poorly and not her usual self,” Lisa, who works as a careers advisor at a school, added.
Jackie was rushed to hospital where it was discovered not only had her breast cancer returned, she also had ovarian cancer that had spread. Doctors said her body was “shutting down”.
“She deteriorated over the weekend and we got told she wasn’t going to make it,” Lisa added.
“It had been confirmed the cancer had returned but we knew that by looking at her. It had spread everywhere.”
Lisa can recall the heartbreaking moment she learned her mum was going to die.
“They pulled me into a room and said she was a very poorly woman and that she was more likely not going to make it,” she added.
“That was heartbreaking and not believable at the time.
“We had gone from not knowing any of this, thinking she was going to be okay and come back from this spiral soon, to her being in hospital and being told she was going to die.
“It was awful and I had to relay it back to my sisters. They just broke down. They’re only babies, aren’t
they? I should be my mum’s age planning my mum’s funeral.
“We should have another 20 years with her.”
Described as a loud extrovert with a heart of gold, Jackie loved nothing more than going to watch the football and colouring books – even asking her family to bring them to hospital bedside in her final days.
“She loved to go out and socialise,” Lisa added.
“She absolutely loved gel pens and colouring in. She always had her adult colouring books with her we’ve actually put them in her coffin with her.
“She just loved spending time with her grandchildren.
“She actually had a heart of gold. She would give you her last pound in her pocket if she could.
“Everyone came to see her on the last night. We were on hour-by-hour. I asked her what her last wish was, and she said to go to sleep and be pain free,
which I fought tooth and nail for.
“Myself, my three sisters, her mum and dad and two closest friends were by her bedside when she passed.”
Jackie’s family have since set up a Gofundme appeal to help give her the “sendoff she truly deserves”.
It reads: “As some of you may know we lost our queen at a very young age of 48.
“She was an absolute credit to us and one of a kind! She had the most fun personality and made everyone laugh with her crazy ways!
“She left behind myself and my 3 younger sisters, me being 31 and youngest being 17, we shouldn’t have to be organising our mum’s funeral at this age.
“We are only accepting family flowers at her funeral, but if you would like to make a donation to make her send-off even bigger and better and what she truly deserves, then they are greatly accepted from the bottom of our hearts!”