Gravesend dad with inoperable brain tumour is hoping fundraiser will help make family memories
A dad living with an inoperable brain tumour is hoping to fill his remaining time with a host of family memories after his childhood friend set up a fundraiser in his name.
John Rendle was diagnosed with a life-limiting brain tumour last year and has since faced a series of problems which have left precious moments with his wife and young children overshadowed by stress.
“I feel like there is a big weight on me at the moment and I’m taking a lot on my shoulders,” the 39-year-old said.
The Gravesend resident first found out something was wrong when he was blue-lighted to Darent Valley Hospital, Dartford, following a 10-minute seizure in the middle of the night last June.
Following a week-long stay and a referral to London’s King’s College Hospital he was eventually diagnosed with anaplastic astrocytoma grade three brain tumour on November 7, which due to the way it has developed on the brain much of the tumour was inoperable.
Over the next few months, John underwent three major surgeries, including one on Christmas Day, after brain fluid started to leak from his scar.
As a result, his young family, Ollie, five and Emilia, three, were forced to delay present opening until he was home and share pigs in blankets at his bedside.
But battling a serious illness was not all John had to worry about.
Shortly before his seizure, he had changed his insurance company, which left him facing another unexpected fight.
“I had been advised it was a better company by a friend,” he said.
But when the company found out about John’s hospital admission and diagnosis it refused to pay out and cancelled his critical life cover as well as his wife’s insurance policy, without explanation.
“They thought I had known about the tumour before, but I hadn’t had a doctor’s appointment or my seizure until after I signed with them,” John said.
It meant the family man was left with no financial help when he needed it most.
“We needed it for savings when I can no longer work and for trips to make memories with the family,” he said. And there was more bad news.
Just a few months earlier, while getting the Christmas decorations from the loft, John discovered cracks large enough to fit his hand through in the loft which quickly spread to the bathroom and the outside of the house.
Since then the Arsenal fan, who works from home for a printing company, has also been fighting for an insurance claim to pay for the repairs, which are expected to cost up to £50,000.
He says the company was happy to pay £8,000 out but not the full sum.
Knowing he might not have long left, John is desperate to save his wife being left with a mortgage on a house she cannot sell because of the structural issues.
“The stress of all the house stuff has not helped me at all,” he said.
Seeing his childhood friend suffering, best pal Damien Clarkson, who now lives in Greenwich, decided to set up a gofundme appeal to raise £50,000.
“The diagnosis came as a massive shock. It’s the kind of thing you don’t expect to happen to you,” he said.
“It’s life-shortening but John doesn’t know how long that will be. Things can change very quickly.
“I think it is really important the family get to make these memories and fit as much in as they can because we don’t know what tomorrow holds.”
To donate click on the link here.
The pair met at nursery school when they were just three and have been friends ever since, sitting next to each other at York Road Primary in Dartford and attending Leigh City Technology College in Dartford.
Despite undergoing multiple surgeries and treatments for his cancer, Damien said John has taken part in charity fundraising walks collectively raising more than £5,000 for The Brain Tumour Charity.