Nicola's Story
Why I set up The Ricky Casey Trust in loving memory of my husband.
My name is Nicola Casey, wife of Ricky, and founder and chair of The Ricky Casey Trust. I established the charity in loving memory and honour of my husband. We went through the most heartbreaking time with this aggressive cancer, devastatingly hard diagnosis and treatment.
After I lost Ricky to RMC (Renal Medullary Carcinoma), I found myself wanting to turn my grief into something positive and to help others. Me and Ricky fought this together, with very little help or knowledge available to us in the UK. This was a very hard and frightening journey for us, especially because RMC was such a rare type of kidney cancer.
I was determined to try and use what I had learned to help at least one other person faced with this terrible disease. However, I realised that with my drive and passion that comes from deep in my heart, I could do much more and continue to do so in Ricky's legacy.
Ricky touched so many hearts. In the last few months of his life, many friends and people from our community pulled together to raise funds in the hope of getting a drug that wasn't available on the NHS. This was truly overwhelming for us both. Unfortunately, Ricky's cancer was taking over fast and he was deteriorating quickly. Sadly he didn't survive long enough to receive this treatment.
My aim was to put the funds raised to good use and to make sure that every penny that was donated would be put towards something that would make a difference. I also knew I wanted to continue to raise awareness and funds in the future for rare kidney cancers. The only way I could see I could take full control of this was to set up my own charity.
And now I'm really proud to say here we are, together, with a great team of trustees and patrons, and you the public believing in my mission. I know we can make some great strides in tackling the terrible disease that is RMC, as well as other rare renal cancers; and I know that The Ricky Casey Trust can make positive changes for patients in the future.
Stronger together,
Love Nicola Casey
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