This page is dedicated to the memory of
Valerie Ann Finney
6th October 1942 to 11th October 2016
Born in Leicester united kingdom in 1942 she was the eldest daughter of Gladys Mangham (Mathews) she contracted rheumatic fever at a early age which resulted in her later years requiring both Aortic and mitral heart valve replacement.
In 1992 while a patient in the former Groby Road Heart Hospital, in Leicester. was given the sad news that should she not have both valves replaced at the same time she would only have approximately 12 months to survive. both her valves where leaking blood quite badly and without medical intervention she would certainly die.
So in August 1992 she became the last person ever in world to have Multiple Valve Replacement surgery at Leicester’s Pioneering Heart Hospital with the following day being that the whole hospital would be moving across the road to a band newly built hospital. Val was in surgery for 11 hours being placed on heart and lung bypass a total of three times and her heart going into Cardiac Arrest twice.
11 Hours later Val was transferred to Intensive Care, & within three she was recovering at home with a new leak free heart & a lifetime of Anticoagulant to prevent blood clots. something we as a family had to get used to and also learn how to treat her if she cut herself or became bruised without a reason. Val continue her life doing what she enjoyed best helping others.
In 1996 she earned recognition with her family for raising nearly £65,000 for the national Children’s Helpline ChildLine (Now NSPCC) Val would spend every hour she could holding collection tin’s or selling donated items at fairs & Country fairs throughout Leicestershire. As a family we all trained and gained national qualifications in Child protection & Counselling mum encouraged myself and my brother to attend a location in Nottinghamshire once a month and receive calls from children and young people calling ChildLine.
Mum enjoyed life and helping others especially those with disabilities enjoying being a support assistant for pupils of Western Park Open Air School when they had day trips to London or Alton Towers.
Val enjoyed helping others she made ever day a positive one regardless of however she felt she was a lady who took no messing and also always made sure she got her own back sooner or later, Her proudest moment was helping here youngest son (Lee) and his fiancé to organise their wedding she was treated as one of the girls by my brothers fiancé having her makeup, hair & nails painted.
Shortly after this Val started to struggle to breath and I took her to Leicester Royal Infirmary A + E department where she was diagnosed with heart failure her Spo2 levels were around 85% and although she was adamant there was nothing wrong she spent over 6 weeks in Leicester’s Glenfield General Hospital, It was here she started to decline suffering memory loss and confusion, as well as three episode’s of SEPSIS.
Over a long period of time as Val became more and more unwell she was visited daily by Nurses from the Leicestershire primary care trust District Nursing Team who dressed her continuously leaking legs from Blisters which had opened up on both her legs due to Heart failure and lymph edema, The District nursing teams were a god send to supporting myself and out family in Val’s care, gaining trust and providing us with a listening post when times got tough and challenging.
Around three years before Val’s passing we had the chance to employ and private PA who assisted Val in her daily personal care as well as supporting the family in making trips to hospital appointments or days out so as to give Val a reasonable quality of life. Sarah Hart was employed to help support myself in caring for mum as well as become a alie for mum which meant on occasions the ladies gained the last word and all the other words in between.
The Girls as their became known became a team and Val wouldn’t go anywhere without Sarah by her side this meant i could have a rest knowing mum was cared for by Sarah, Sarah became a lifeline in a emergency to
Over time Val had many falls and many infections and was transferred to Hinckley & Bosworth Community Hospital, North Ward. Where she became a character to be reckoned with. She was diagnosed with Sundown Syndrome and continued to receive sedation at night time to help with this, Sadly over the time she was a patient there she was also diagnosed with vascular Dementia and although she had a wonderful memory while she was well this would noticeably change over the 6 months that she was a patient of the community hospital she was also receiving treatment for leg ulcers which where dressed twice a day by nursing staff.
To me my mum Val became just another patient who needed my skills as a dementia trained volunteer assisting her to remember the good times and family and friends, as well as providing her with some comfort when she was scared or upset i was also her son who loved supporting her and encouraging her to make progress. On a good day we would redesign our back garden at home ready for her discharge as well as chat about what needed to be planted and when!
On her bad days I was the person who brought her down from a violent rage where anything with a sharp edge was seen as a perfect weapon against the enemies in her head. Many people with Vascular Dementia & Sundown Syndrome can become very frightened and confused very quickly causing some situations to become very upsetting even if its just something really simple.
“I remember one lunchtime visiting mum after a morning hospital volunteering shift i could hear her from the ward entrance she was upset that she had not got her pudding first before her lunch, Staff members had withdrawn from the room and requested a doctor to come and give her something to calm her down, i remember being warned not to enter her room as she had a knife & folk handy but as usual i took no notice ( i just walked in and told her to sit down and do as she was told) as she picked up her folk to throw at me i grabbed it from her and said thank you! she picked up her knife so i did the same! her plate was full of a lovely roast dinner so she lifted this up to hurl at me but i took that off her before she could do any damage.
Telling her that because she had been naughty she would now get nothing, this made her upset and cry i then told her i would be back when she said sorry to all the staff she had shorted at and threatened. I know it seemed like i was treating her like a baby but it worked, she apologized and i sat with her while she eat her dinner and putting.. That day i learn a good lesson that if you stand your ground you get what you need.
From that day onward she would always calm straight down when i entered the room if she was shouting and screaming she would say sorry to me and then ask me calmly if she could have something. My dementia awareness training provided to me on that morning from NHS Leicester had given me the confidence to take control of a situation and then better support mum from then on, The staff of the hospital took my recommendation onboard and took the same training cause some weeks later.”
When mum had good days she was like her old self mischievous and smiling with loads of embarrassing memories of me and my brother Lee when we was younger, she would always enjoy flowers and gifts and visits from her family especially my sister-in-law Clare which meant a girly afternoon of chatting and nail painting as well as a cup of hot chocolate, us lads where told to go find something to do! Sadly this was the last time she had participating in these activities as within mouths she would start to decline in health with infection after infection attacking her body throughout September 2016.
In October 2016 Val became less responsive towards us with a lot of sleeping and quite time she would sleep even when her dressings were being changed, (this normally would result in high pitch screams of pain) which was unusual.
On the 6th October 2016 Val celebrated her 74 and like always we celebrated with the whole finney family coming together but unfortunately Val slept through the whole day waking only to ask for the heat to be turned down as she was too hot, To myself and that of the nursing staff this caused alarm bells to ring that something just wasn’t right and that she was unusually quiet and withdrawn.
It was suggested that a doctor be called and after some time she was placed on IV antibiotics to treat the signs of Sepsis, Val spend five totally unresponsive days in her bed being made as comfortable as possible with visits from family & friends everyone was aware that end of life was coming sooner than we wanted.
At 10.25pm on the 11th October 2016 at Hinckley & Bosworth Community Hospital Val Passed Peacefully away in her sleep with us all present, That night my 5 years of caring for mum came to a end and although i was sad i know in my heart that she wasn’t in pain anymore and her sole was free. Val was removed by G Seller & Son Funeral Directors or Main Street, Hinckley at 5.26am the following morning & by the time i returned to the hospital at 11am her room she has been resident in for the past 6 months was fully steam cleaned and ready for a new patient.
Val’s official cause of death was as above. Her fight was now over!
On the 28th October 2016 Val was cremated at Gilroes Crematorium, Groby Road, Leicester. & Intertied in a plot number CP75 a week later.
Myself and Dad mark every year on here birthday 6th October & here death 11th October by arranging flowers at her grave and making a general fuss of her grave site. she was a lady who no one ever forgot and even though she is no longer by our sides she is still in our memories each and every day.
