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Lung CancerArrow
Aged 51-60
Interview LC22  

Interview LC22

Age at Interview: 59
Sex: Male
Age at Diagnosis: 58
Background: Builder (retired), married, 4 children.
Brief outline:Diagnosed with lung cancer in 2001, followed by radiotherapy from outside the chest to the lung.


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He held his own wake and collected money for charity.

 



This Cancer Care people they, as I said before forty percent of their funding comes from the health trust and the other sixty percent has got to be raised. I was out one night talking to a friend of mine, I won't use the language I used that night but what the situation was he sort of laughed and he said "Oh we're going to have a good party when you go," and I said "Oh yeah you probably will, lucky lot of so and so's. And we sat there generally chit-chatting and it came out that that night I decided I would hold my own wake, and this we did. So we had a nice little wake on 5th January and I charged £5 a ticket for people to come. And we had some music and we had a little bit of food but we raised £900 for Cancer Care.

Oh that's good.

So that was quite good and they were obviously over the moon. And then as time went on in the summer we had, as time went on in the summer I decided just to have a charity night and we raised another few hundred quid. And September of last year I've had quite a few good people saying "Oh when we going to have another do, when we going to have another do," so I thought okay fine so let's have another think about this. So I decided to organise another do and call it my Still Awake Wake. So we had a country and western band and loads of people, my friends and business associates donated prizes and we had a draw and we had seventy odd prizes in the draw and everybody had a jolly good night. And that night we raised £1180 for the Cancer Care people so they're actually over the moon with that.

Excellent.

But again it was just my sense of humour really.

But now they're on about when are we going to have the next one so I said "Well you can only have so many wake, wake, wakes can't you?" so the next one I'm going to be sixty in July so I've decided to have a sixtieth birthday party and just have a charity night and raise a few more bob for them. But it's just this still awake and awake and my waking wake was just a bit of fun really. I must admit it didn't, there was quite, a few of my friends, not many, but just a few of them said they'd buy a ticket but wouldn't come because they couldn't see the funny side of it. 

Oh that's interesting that you can feel there's a sense of humour in it but other people perhaps can't?

Well I think everybody is different aren't they, everybody has got their opinions about this, that and the other. I've got quite a good friend, he'll donate prizes and he'll buy a ticket but he won't come, definitely won't come.  
Karol Sikora - Lung cancer
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