Tragic mother’s final messages to her young son

Nicola Broomhead penned the cards to her nine-year-old son Alfie to give him “as many memories as possible” before she died.

Her partner Lee Davis said: “I cannot imagine what it must be like to be 34-years-old, sitting at home and doing that – then walking your son home from school and still be upbeat.

“I just don’t know how she managed to get through it. She was amazing. Alfie really was her world.”

Her cancer was spotted when she visited the optician.

“What she thought was going to be a routine visit, maybe ending up with reading glasses, turned out to be devastating,” said Mr Davis, 41, of Sheffield.

Doctors diagnosed her with a rare eye cancer. She was given proton therapy in Merseyside, but was warned the procedure would damage her optic nerve, causing sight loss. She had surgery to realign her damaged eye, then attended the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield for six-monthly check-ups.

Formerly a secretary, she took a job as a carer as she recovered.

“She’d been through a rough time and we finally thought we’d turned a corner,” he said. “We were even talking about marriage and having other children.”

But last summer doctors gave the family news they dreaded to hear — the cancer had returned in her liver

“She was devastated,” said Mr Davis.

“But we decided we weren’t going to lie to Alfie, so she told him straight away. Then she wrote him birthday, Christmas and Valentine’s cards until he is 25.”

She received chemotherapy and immunotherapy at Weston Park Hospital and visited St Luke’s Hospice, both in Sheffield, weekly. She died at home in June, with Mr Davis by her side.

“She was where she wanted to be,” he said. “I was holding her hand and stroking her hair.”

He will compete in the Great Yorkshire Run in Sheffield on September 28, followed by the Huddersfield Hilly Half Marathon, the Scarborough 10K and the Sheffield TenTenTen 10K in aid of St Luke’s. Go to www.justgiving.com/LeeDavis9 to sponsor him.