A TEENAGER with just days to live was forced to evade security guards as he fled through a hospital, before jumping into a getaway car – just so he could die at home.
Teddie Marks, 18, was wheelchair-bound, with his legs swelled up from cancer but was able to show off his athletic prowess one last time during the comedic mad dash.
Teddie Marks died from a rare and aggressive cancer[/caption]
The teen was forced to flee the hospital[/caption]
Mum Jay – who is campaigning for more access to grief counselling for bereaved families – explained how everything had been put in place to allow her son to receive palliative care at the family’s home in Braintree, Essex.
However, at the last minute, as they left University College London Hospital they were confusingly told Teddie had to stay, against his wishes.
Security was called and they were to be blocked from leaving – but the adventurous young man was having none of it.
Mum-of-three Jay, 42, said: “He’s 18, they got all his paperwork ready, they gave us all his medication, they said to us he was going to be blue-lighted because from UCLH to Braintree it’s a bit of a drive.
“Then they said they were going to get a normal ambulance but I would have to sign responsibility for him, which was fine… then we’re told that’s been cancelled.”
Jay continued: “In the end, the palliative care nurse fitted him up with a 24-hour pump so that we could get him home and hook him up to the machine.”
‘That makes no sense’
The family then got into a lift on the 15th floor with the palliative care nurse, alongside a “bag of medication” and all of Teddie’s things from weeks of being in and out of hospital – when they hit another speed bump.
“On the way down she had a call and she was like ‘right okay’, then she said ‘they’ve called security’,” explained Jay.
“We were like what? That makes no sense because she was with us and he’d been discharged.
“Teddie was an adult and sound of mind, and he’d told them he wanted to go home.”
Not wanting to stick around to find out what was going on, Teddie, who was being pushed in a wheelchair, as well as his mum and dad Joseph, and two other relatives, bolted.
“When the lift doors opened on the ground floor we ran, we were gone,” said Jay.
“We were literally running through the hospital and the nurse was shouting ‘stop!’
“They didn’t catch up to us, and poor Teddie, he jumped in the car, bearing in mind his legs were all swollen, he had lymphedema where the fluid wasn’t going back upwards because of where the tumour was sitting.
You’ve never seen him move so fast. He jumped out of the wheelchair, jumped in the car and went ‘drive!’
Jay Marks
“You’ve never seen him move so fast,” continued Jay. “He jumped out of the wheelchair, jumped in the car and went ‘drive!’”
Joseph’s two aunts, who had been with them at the hospital, stayed behind and later told the family the nurse burst into tears.
“She was crying and she was saying ‘I’m happy they got to go’ because it wasn’t her that had called security – it had been higher up,” explained Jay.
“They’d already given him his discharge papers and everything we needed, it made no sense. It’s funny to look back on now, what everyone else must have been thinking.”
Teddie was just 18 when he passed away[/caption]
Jay and Teddie as a toddler[/caption]
Teddie (centre) with his sister Robyn and brother Harrison[/caption]
That was on July 12 2024 and on the 14th Teddie finally passed away.
It had been a tough journey since his shock diagnosis at age 16 in 2022 with Rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare type of cancer that starts as a growth of cells in soft tissue.
“It’s quite rare but quite aggressive, and it tends to come back even if you get rid of it,” explained Jay.
“He did have a six-month period when he got rid of the cancer, and then he relapsed in July 2023, and then we’ve had a long battle.”
Trips to Germany
The family was told there was nothing more the NHS could offer and so they spent tens of thousands of pounds, via GoFundMe, to travel to Germany multiple times – the last of which was days before Teddie died.
“We’d been seeing different professors that had tried different treatments,” said Jay. “Unfortunately, the last professor we tried, he was having some success, and the month after that treatment, Teddie was feeling much better.
“All the swelling in his legs had gone down, he was feeling much better, but by that time the cancer had spread and we didn’t catch it.”
Teddie knew he was dying as he’d flown to Germany the last time, but didn’t want to give up.
“His words were ‘I’m not going to die without trying’,” said Jay. “He was fighting the whole time.”
Asked if he’d been able to get alternative treatment sooner she believes her son could have survived, Jay said: “I think so. The NHS will say ‘no, no’ but they are so ignorant to what is out there in Europe, it’s unbelievable.”
Teddie was a talented footballer[/caption]
Jay described him as the ‘perfect’ child[/caption]
The teen was originally diagnosed with cancer in 2022[/caption]
After Teddie relapsed in March 2023 he was given an operation and it was “made clear” by the consultants that they’d “tripled checked” with the surgeons that Teddie’s cancer could be removed with “clear margins”, said Jay.
“Because if it couldn’t they weren’t going to touch it. They said ‘the surgeons are really sure’.”
“After the operation, as soon as Teddie came round, he said ‘did you get it with clear margins?’ and they said ‘we can’t be sure’.
“It must not have been checked properly,” Jay said. “When he had scans four to six weeks after the op, nodules had appeared.
“I think at that point if we’d gone to Germany, Teddie would have stood a better chance.”
£100,000 in 24 hours
The GoFundMe page set up to help the teen receive alternative treatments “went over £100,000 in the first 24 hours”, said Jay.
“GoFundMe got in touch to say they had never seen one go up that quickly.”
All of that and more went on private testing and treatments abroad.
“I can’t sit here and say don’t listen to the NHS because overall they were amazing, but it’s frustrating that there are these treatments out there,” said Jay.
“Don’t get me wrong, the hospital was amazing, especially the nurses who go above and beyond.”
Teddie playing video games in hospital[/caption]
He battled cancer bravely for two years[/caption]
Teddie even passed his driving test while he underwent chemo[/caption]
But with all other hope lost, with the help of Farleigh Hospice, in Braintree, Teddie was able to die in the comfort of his own home.
“He knew what he was going home for,” said Jay. “It was absolutely heartbreaking because you know you are saying bye to your child.
“We sat up every night. He had his family here, his aunts, his uncles and his cousins.
‘Don’t be depressed’
“At one point, Teddie said ‘don’t be depressed, put some music on’,” she added, laughing.
Teddie had always been the one to keep the family’s spirits up, even throughout his illness.
“He was such a good boy,” said Jay. “There were days after he got diagnosed where I couldn’t get up, couldn’t function and he would come in and say to me, ‘up you get, Mum’.
“He had such strong faith, he was quite religious – even when Teddie was dying, he had all the family here and was cuddling his girl cousins and he said ‘don’t cry for me, I know where I’m going.’
“That boy was absolutely something else.”
Teddie had first been getting pain in August 2021, and by November he was “in agony” and “was up three or four nights straight”, said Jay, who took him to A&E multiple times.
However, they were sent away again and again and told to take over the counter painkillers.
He didn’t let cancer stop him from remaining positive[/caption]
Teddie was even joking with his family on his death bed[/caption]
University College London Hospital, where Teddie was treated[/caption]
Jay said Teddie was “very robust”, he was captain of Chelmsford City EJA, but even his pain threshold was being pushed to the limit.
Eventually, the family paid for a private doctor and MRI scan, then an operation which found abscesses.
The doctor sent off for a biopsy at UCLH and then a week later a phone call confirmed the worst.
“It was during lockdown so everything was a bit dodgy,” said Jay. “I got told over the phone that Teddie had cancer and was given a treatment plan.”
During his treatment Teddie refused to stop, and passed his GCSE Maths and English – the latter to an A* standard – while undergoing chemotherapy. And even passed his driving test.
But while his memory lives on, Jay is still as heartbroken now as she was a year ago.
‘You can’t prepare yourself’
“You know it’s coming but you can’t prepare yourself,” she said of her son’s death.
“I can’t put it into words, it’s coming up to a year but I’m still devastated every day. Me and his dad, brother and sister, and his nan. There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t cry.”
She added, of her children: “They’ll always be my babies.”
Taking up the baton left by Teddie, his mum is now campaigning herself to raise awareness about the wait times families must endure to receive grief counselling.
After filling out a form she was told by the hospice the waiting list is nine to 12 months.
Jay said: “Last week I had an email from Farleigh saying they’ve got this session thing, it’s not one to one counselling, there’s other people there.
“There’s 10 spaces and to get back to them if I wanted a place.
“I saw the email, 40 minutes later, by the time I got back they’d emailed me saying all the spaces had gone.”
Jay said she had another email from the hospice asking since it was a “considerable amount of time since I put my application in for counselling, have my circumstances changed?”
“They did get an email back saying ‘my circumstances haven’t changed, unfortunately my son hasn’t risen from the dead, I’m still grieving and still in need of support’.
She continued: “It’s not going to change. I just can’t get my head round that it can take this long to sort… any grief is bad, but when you’ve lost your child, I can’t explain it. It’s unexplainable.”
Jay went on to say: “I said to my doctor, ‘they’re lucky I’m not suicidal’. If he was my only child maybe I would be suicidal but I have two other children who I need to look after.
It’s not going to change. I just can’t get my head round that it can take this long to sort… any grief is bad, but when you’ve lost your child, I can’t explain it. It’s unexplainable.
Jay Marks
“I carry the family’s grief. My daughter, her and Teddie were 10 months apart – she’s got ASD, so she’s on the spectrum, and Teddie was her comfort blanket.
“She struggles really badly. Then my eldest son, who’s 23 now, he will just struggle silently.
“I feel like I have to carry on because I don’t want them to see my grieving and think they’ve got to carry my grief.”
She added: “I do feel passionately that there are parents going through this and you have to wait a year. We can’t go privately.
“My husband sold his company when Teddie got diagnosed because we were backwards and forwards to UCLH. He’s a caretaker now and I’m a support assistant in a school.”
Jay said: “I’ve lost people but nothing compares to losing your child, especially when you’ve watched your child go through what he did for two and a half years.
“You get a lot of flashbacks, I’m sure it’s PTSD. You’re replaying stuff continuously. It’s traumatising when you hear your baby, though he was 18, in the night screaming in agony.
“It’s traumatising to remember the running from the hospital, the taking him to Germany when he was in agony.”
She described Teddie as “my best mate”, adding: “I know parents say that about their kids but he was like my right arm.
“He was always with me, we were always together. We had the same sense of humour. We were always laughing.
“No one could get you in tears of laughter like Teddie could. For me, I’m still completely lost.”
Michelle Kabia, Interim Chief Executive at Farleigh Hospice, said: “Ensuring that the families of our patients receive the best quality support throughout their loved ones illness and afterwards is our absolute priority.
“Our bereavement support services are offered free of charge to anyone within mid Essex.
“As a result they are in incredibly high demand, as reflected in our current waiting lists, which we are actively working to reduce.
“We regularly stay in touch with people on the waiting list to check how they are, offer interim bereavement support options while they wait for one to one counselling, and check whether their circumstances have changed, as people may have accessed alternative support or moved out of the area.
“We welcome all feedback and are continually looking to improve our services. We would be very happy to have a further conversation with the family.”
The Sun has also approached University College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for comment
Click here to see Jay’s grief counselling petition.
Do you have a similar story? Email ryan.merrifield@thesun.co.uk
