Help Jo Haywood be buried with her son, Charlie x

Hi there, we are Jo’s family, Chas (her husband of 52 years), Emma (daughter) and Mike (son).  As some of you are aware, Jo passed away on Wednesday 30 August 2023 at 11:30pm.  We are absolutely devastated by Jo’s passing and are now struggling to find the funds to cover the cost of some of the funeral costs.  

Jo would want to be buried with her baby boy, Charlie, who was laid to rest in Oaston Road Cemetery in Nuneaton in 1981 (he was only 14 days old when he passed).  The family now live in Walsall, which is 30+ miles away from Nuneaton.  The costs to cover the charges for grave preparation in Nuneaton, because we don’t live in the borough, are £931 x 3!  

Your donation (no matter how big or small) will directly contribute to covering this cost. Your kindness will go towards helping the family at this difficult time.  We need to pay ⅔ of the cost as soon as possible.

Details of the funeral service will be updated as soon as possible but we are currently planning for Thursday 21 September 2023.  The church service will be held in the morning at The Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints Chapel in Walsall, by the M6 Junction 10. Her burial will be in the afternoon at Nuneaton Cemetery.  The service will also be live streamed via Zoom as the family have close friends all over the world who we know would want to be part of the day. Here’s a look into Jo’s final journey from the past 12 months:

Jo had been ill for a very long time but due to an injury to her lower back in July 2022 had lost the feeling from her waist down and spent a long period in hospital.  She was eventually discharged to a nursing care home in October 2022.  

Her health took a turn for the worse in May 2023 and she was taken to hospital with chest pains and struggling to breathe. Doctors told us that they believed she’d had a blood clot on her lungs since January and would be administering very strong blood thinners in order to help deal with the blood clot. 

Months in hospital passed, being moved from one ward to another.  At the beginning of July we were suddenly told that they were discharging her back to the care home.  We thought this was madness as Jo was unable to breathe properly without the support of additional oxygen and there was no provision for this at the care home.  Within 4 hours of being back at the care home, Jo’s blood oxygen sats were too low and an ambulance was called for.  The paramedics were brilliant and went through Jo’s discharge notes with us, which no one from the hospital had done before her discharge!  We were very shocked to learn that the hospital had diagnosed Jo with type 2 respiratory failure and heart failure; she had also gotten HAP (hospital acquired pneumonia) during her hospital stay.

Back to A&E we went; Jo was convinced in the ambulance that she was dying and kept saying her goodbyes and to give her love to the grandkids.  Her blood oxygen sats were restored to acceptable levels and she felt much better.  Within a few weeks, Jo’s health took a decline and she was convinced she was dying again and asking for a blessing.  Doctors informed us that Jo’s heart and lungs were struggling and that she had end stage heart failure and it was fighting a battle to remove the fluid that had built up in her lungs and body.  We spent a week not knowing if she would make it or not, but after a blessing from a special elder in the ward who had received a spiritual prompt to go and visit her, she started to pick up and respond well to the medication they were giving her to help remove the excess fluid.  

We thought things were getting better when she was moved from the Short Stay ward (it felt anything but a ‘short stay’) to a nearby ward.  A month later, Jo was sleeping all the time and it was very difficult to wake her up.  We thought it was her large number of medications and their drowsy side effects.  Looking back now, I think it was her body’s way of trying to recover.  She really started to deteriorate in her final week on this earth.  Doctors were finally listening to us about reducing the medications with sedative effects, but by then it was too late. Her body was shutting down. Her speech was slow, her hearing was going, her vision was blurry and she was confused and hallucinating.  

The doctor met with us on the Tuesday to say that we needed to start thinking about what was best for Jo in making her comfortable.  They couldn’t give us a time frame but her organs (heart, lungs and kidneys) were all fighting each other.  We never thought we’d only have another day with her.  Medication was reduced that day and she really picked up the next day. By 8pm her breathing became very crackly and one of the nurses noticed so the doctor ordered an emergency chest x-ray.  They did an ECG, and then tried a nebulizer which helped some.  Within an hour of the x-ray being done she took her last breath, with dad beside her.  She passed at 11.30pm.