Beautiful Kev Belcher

Hello friends,

This is Jodi here.

I have been absolutely blown away by the terribly sad news that my beautiful friend Jodie Belcher has lost her soul mate, the fabulous Kevin Belcher, after a 3 year arduous, difficult and lonely fight against kidney cancer.

This has absolutely rocked my world, I can not imagine how Jodie, Reece and Calum must be feeling. I feel absolutely useless and want to help them. I don't want to send the usual flowers as they just end up dying anyway, so I wanted to do something useful & helpful for Jodie & their boys.

He died suddenly on 16th August, and as it was so unexpected, his funeral has not been planned or paid for which has been causing Jodie no end of stress, by keeping to his wishes, that were rushedly spoken about in the last week of his life, and also the financial impact.

Jodie does not need the extra stress or worry about trying to get a loan to pay for Kev's funeral so I have started this page, to try to ease some of the burden falling onto Jodie's shoulders.

The money could be used towards his funeral, a memorial for Kevin, or for a weekend away for Jodie & her boys when they feel up to it...whatever, it might help to take some of the strain away.

Please donate below...

Please continue if you wish to read about Kev's tragic story...

Kev had recently started his new job as a Postman around 2020 and was working hard throughout Covid, carrying his heavy post bag. His back had started to really ache and was getting to him. Due to all the miles and daily 20,000+ steps a day he was doing, he started to lose weight. Kev put this down to the walking, however the weight loss, then showed a massive lump on his side, consequently after a difficult time he had the usual scans, biopsies and blood tests and the results came back as Cancer - a Wilms tumour. This is usually only a childhood cancer, very rare but aggresive in adults.

Brave Kev had his kidney with the tumour attached to it surgically removed, when it was it weighed, it was a horrifying 10kg! Which is 22lb! Triple the size of an average 7lb baby!

Kev, had so many rounds of intense chemotherapy, all of them were at the amazing Royal Marsden Hospital as it was such a rare and specialist case. This meant Kev had to travel to London and stay in hospital for weeks at a time, taking him away from his family.

The cancer had cruelly spread to his lung, and the chemotherapy continued. He fought like this for 3 years and was even having chemotherapy right up until July this year.

In July, Jodie & Kev, decided to have a holiday and continue to make treasured memories for their boys and the consultant was happy for this to happen between chemo cycles. Kev drove his family of 4, all the way to Scotland at the end of July. They stopped overnight on their way up, and Kev continued to drive up the rest of the way, the next morning.

Kev loved driving and his dream was to drive down through France and around Europe. He was in his element driving however, he was also in a lot of pain by the time they reached their destination, which was 30 minutes from John'O'Groats! They had a lovely holiday, being together but Kev was not able to do much as he was too unwell.

They took a longer time to get home, with Jodie driving them home and having 2 overnight stops. They finally got home on Sunday the 4th August at 3pm. By 7pm, he was feeling incredibly unwell and in a lot of pain, he surprisingly agreed to Jodie that he needed an ambulance. He was so brave and stoic, fighting to stay with his family but was admitted to Medway hospital that evening and was commenced onto much needed antibiotics for a severe infection, and needing strong pain relief.

He remained in Lawrence ward at Medway Hospital where visiting was limited to over 16s only. Cruelly, his amazing boys couldn't visit him as Reece is 15, nearly 16, and Calum is only 10. After he'd been in there for a week, he wasn't getting any better, he was very drowsy and couldn't hold a conversation. He hadn't got out of bed and had stopped eating. On the Tuesday, after he'd been in over a week, the Royal Marsden had a telephone consultation with Jodie and explained Kev was too poorly to commence his chemotherapy and dragging him into London would be unfair on him.

The following day, Kev was transferred to the specialist care of the Wisdom Hospice on Weds 14th for symptom control. By that afternoon, shockingly Jodie was told Kev was dying and he only had a few days left to live.

Jodie and the boys were with Kev for his last 2 days and he tragically died on Friday 16th August.

Only 3 days after Jodie was told, no more chemo.

I can not express how much Kev's death has shocked everyone. He was loved by so many people, but especially Jodie and his boys. He was the most amazing Dad, Husband and fella. He was absolutely besotted with Jodie, Reece and Calum. They were his whole world. Such a beautiful, strong family unit of 4 and he fought so very hard not to leave them.

They hadn't planned his funeral as they thought he had a lot longer to make those sort of plans. Him & the boys had chosen a few songs and Kev talked about what he wanted, with Jodie and the boys involvement (which is heartbreaking in itself) but nothing was booked or paid for. As you can imagine, this has come as a shock and completely out of the blue! He had driven his family to Scotland for a holiday less than 3 weeks before he'd died.

So, now if you feel like I do ... completely helpless, then maybe you could help Jodie by donating some money to help take the pressure off her and the boys, maybe instead of sending her flowers or a card, you could donate that money?

It might not seem much to you but it will really help Jodie and the boys out.

I can not imagine how Jodie must be feeling but I know she does not need the extra worry and stress of trying to find the money for Kev's funeral. It will be hard enough for her to shoulder all the responsibility of raising their two sons on her own, so if we can help her in any way, then please donate. They may be able to get a little holiday away together?

Thank you so much in advance, she doesn't know about this but I know she will appreciate it.