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“I can’t fault
Te Omanga Hospice in any way, I truly can’t.”
Te Omanga Hospice cared for Pat’s adored wife, Peggy, in her final months, providing support and assistance to them both, which enabled them to focus on each other and cherish their time together.
Pat and Peggy met in Rhodesia, becoming friends while working together in a milling factory. Pat, managing the warehousing and Peggy, an accountant. In the years following, Pat and Peggy’s friendship grew closer, “We had known each other for 53 years, and we were together for 37 years," says Pat lovingly.
“Living in Rhodesia after the war was hard, so we moved to South Africa, where we stayed for nearly 20 years. We got married there in 1992, after a 8-year long engagement,” adds Pat.
After this time, Peggy who was born in Port Chalmers, New Zealand, felt home was calling her back. “We had only visited New Zealand once, when we came back to visit our daughter, but I liked it and so when Peggy told me she wanted to move back, I said okay, and we made the big move to the Hutt Valley. We moved here when we were in our 60s, I have been here 23 years now,” says Pat.
Pat fondly remembers a trip he and Peggy made when they first moved to New Zealand, “We toured the South Island, right down to Invercargill, staying with her relatives in Dunedin and driving back up the West Coast. Coming from Africa, I was amazed when we woke up one morning in Kaikoura to see the mountains were full of snow, it was beautiful!”
Peggy loved sewing, gardening, and her cat Megan, a Siamese British Blue cross. “Megan was so intelligent, a big personality, we would play hide and seek with her and have great fun. We mostly kept to ourselves and enjoyed spending our time together. We would go for drives over to Masterton and visit the lakes. The water was so clear, we couldn’t believe it. In Africa the water runs brown, or they are all dried up”, laughs Pat.
Throughout Peggy’s life she developed a range of health conditions, including melanomas, deteriorating eyesight which led to loss of vision, and dementia.
“Then, towards the start of 2020, Peggy started losing weight very quickly, and she kept going back to the doctors and had multiple stays in hospital to find out what was going on. During her last trip to hospital, they found she had bowel cancer and it had already moved up into her stomach and lungs. We were then referred to Te Omanga Hospice because it was too late for the hospital to do any treatment,” says Pat.
“Peggy was cared for at our home, the nurses would come every day to administer her medication. They did a wonderful job. Nothing was too much for the Hospice staff, they were so caring and personable. It didn’t matter what time it was, I could pick up the phone and call them knowing someone would help me. It was very reassuring and helped take a load off me.”
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