KIRSTY Boles lost her eldest son and ‘best friend’ Jack in 2021, months before his twenty-first birthday.
The 20-year-old had started experiencing subtle symptoms like shoulder pain, tiredness and headaches 18 months earlier, which he initially put down to late into the night.
Kirsty said her eldest son Jack was her best friendCredit: PA Real Life
Her world turned upside down when he was diagnosed with cancer at 19Credit: PA Real Life
He passed away in a hospice months before his twenty-first birthdayCredit: PA Real Life
Mum-of-five Kirsty, 45, said: “In 2020 he started experiencing shoulder pains, which we initially put down to sleeping awkwardly.
“We thought all the headaches and tiredness were because he was up late playing games.”
But the turning point came when Jack noticed swelling in his testicles.
“I remember during Covid I met him for lunch and he said: ‘Mum, my balls are swollen’,” Kirsty said.
At first, they brushed it off as a possible sexually transmitted infection (STI).
But later that day Jack was sent home early from his floor manager job at the local Wetherspoons.
He got blood tests done at Maidstone Hospital – and the results sent Kirsty’s world crashing down around her.
Jack received a diagnosis for acute myeloid , a rare form of blood cancer, aged just 19 in July 2020.
“You hear the word cancer and I think the whole world falls apart… everything stops,” Kirsty said.
“It’s scary. Everything changed after that phone call. The cancer was in his lungs and his heart… it was everywhere.
“I got a lift to the hospital at one in the morning, and he looked like Homer Simpson. He was so yellow.”
Jack was admitted into intensive care the following week, and underwent seven months of chemotherapy at UCLH (University College London Hospitals Foundation Trust).
The restrictions added another layer of frustration and heartbreak for the family, already reeling from Jack’s shocking diagnosis.
Kirsty said: “It was really hard as we had to choose who was going to spend time with him and had to do lots of Covid checks.
Kirsty and Jack FaceTimed all the timeCredit: PA Real Life
The mum was struck by her son’s positive attitudeCredit: PA Real Life
Jack began receiving treatment during the pandemicCredit: PA Real Life
“We FaceTimed all the time, and for 18 months we had phone calls every day, and all of a sudden he passed, and it all stopped.”
Throughout the torturous year-and-a-half, Kirsty said she was stunned by Jack’s unwavering positive attitude.
His composure only cracked the night before his bone marrow transplant surgery, which took place on his twentieth birthday on January 5, 2021.
The mum said: “He was amazing, he was like: ‘I’m alright mum, we’re going to be alright’. We are very proud of the man he became
“I’m sure that he was petrified, but he didn’t show it, apart from the blip he had just before his transplant.
“The night before his transplant, he had a wobble. He said to me, ‘I’m scared of dying’ and I said ‘you’re not going to know you’re dead, Jack. It will be everyone else around you’.
What the symptoms of acute myeloid leukaemia?
ACUTE myeloid leukaemia is a type of blood cancer that affects the immune system's white blood cells.
The causes of the disease are not well understood and it usually cannot be prevented.
Previous chemotherapy, exposure to radiation or smoking could raise the risk.
It is a rare type of cancer and affects around 3,100 people each year in the UK, and 2,700 people die from it annually.
AML is an aggressive form of cancer and often needs urgent treatment with chemotherapy and possibly a bone marrow transplant.
On average only about a third of patients survive for one year or more after being diagnosed.
Symptoms of the disease include:
- Paleness
- Concerning tiredness or weakness
- Often feeling breathless for no reason
- Getting regular infections
- Unexplained weight loss
- Unexplained bleeding and/or bruising
Source: NHS
“That was one of the hardest conversations I think that I ever had to have with him.
“After the transplant, he got the all clear, but six months later his balls started to swell again, and the cancer came back.”
When the family were told that he wasn’t going to make it to his twenty-first birthday, they held an early celebration that was attended by around 300 people.
Kirsty said: “He loved that night. He was suited and booted and had his flat cap on. We even got him a stripper.”
She described Jack as “a mummy’s boy” and “a typical Jack-the-lad”.
“He had an amazing smile, liked the ladies and just loved life. We were extremely close; he was my best friend,” Kirsty said.
‘He went peacefully’
Jack spent his final days in a hospice, after being referred to Hospice in the Weald in Pembury in September 2021.
Kirsty said she’ll never forget walking down the corridor to see her son there for the first time.
She recalled: “Jack was the youngest patient there at the time.
“There was this long corridor on the inpatient ward, and that was the walk from hell for me.
“Before I’d even walked into his room I just broke down and one of the nurses had to take me outside.
“But the way it looks didn’t match what it was like.
“There’s a lot of love on that ward, everyone who works and volunteers there goes above and beyond.”
On the morning of his passing, Kirsty and Jack had one final walk together.
Jack enjoyed his early birthday celebrationsCredit: PA Real Life
He was dressed to the ninesCredit: PA Real Life
Jack ‘had an amazing smile’ Kirsty saidCredit: PA Real Life
“Later in the day we asked his friends to leave the room, and he sat in his chair, and each of our kids held on to a different body part,” Kirsty said.
“He sat in his wheelchair, and they were all like, we love you, Jack, you’re the best big brother.
“Jack very suddenly couldn’t talk and he was nodding, and then had a massive smile, and then just passed away in the chair.
“He went peacefully.”
Two years later, Kirsty decided to start volunteering at the same hospice to help other grieving families.
“If I can just help one family and tell them that it’s going to be alright, then I’ve achieved something,” the mum said.
“I also wanted to prove Jack wrong, because I told him that I was going to start volunteering there and he said that I wouldn’t be able to.
“People that come into the hospice are petrified because they know that their lives are going to change when they walk out that door, because they’re not going to have the person they came in with.
“I build rapport with them because I have been through it too. I’m living proof that you can move on. You never forget but there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Kirsty has been helping shape the hospice’s refurbishment plans alongside other patients, families, staff and volunteers.
As part of the plans, the inpatient corridor is being transformed into a lighter, brighter and more welcoming space.
Kirsty said: “I hope it will make people feel completely different. There is a lot of love in there and it needs to be shown. It needs to be felt as soon as you walk in.”
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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