Once upon a long time ago a young girl lost her Mom to cancer, this young girl grew up to be my wife. She still misses her Mom. A while later my Dad contracted Colon cancer, it was at this stage of my life that I was unable to help because financially we were coming off a real bad trip. My Dad was helped by strangers who built a home for indigent and poor folk. His final days were made comfortable in a Hospice. The tough part was accommodation when he had to travel 140 km a day for treatment. I saw the pain in his face after a day trip from Port Shepstone to Durban for Chemo.
I spoke to doctors and cancer associations in Nelspruit and found that the same occurs here. People are travelling from Komatipoort to get treatment and returning home. They are travelling from Ermelo, Carolina, Piet Retief and even Hazyview. The travelling is what killed my Dad. He couldn’t face it and gave up on the Chemo. His words to me were, “I just cannot face the pain and agony, the morphine will keep me comfortable”. He lied, the pain became too much, the morphine failed.
I want to raise funding to build a house for these patients to stay in while being treated, some will be there overnight, others will spend a day or two. Think of this as a home away from home for those that cannot afford it. Think of it as a place of comfort while getting through a day of poisoning your body to kill the disease slowly eating them from inside. These kind of facilities are not available in South Africa yet. If the principle works, I would like to build more of these havens all over the country, or at least inspire others to do so...
In order to raise these funds I have decided to embark on a journey with my whole family. We are going to travel from the most Southern tip of Africa (Cape Aghullas) to the most northern tip of Europe (Nordkapp in Norway). We are going to be visiting 33 countries. Our adventures and goals will be updated on the site: http://tip2top.co.za - be sure to go and have a look
