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Testimonials

Melanie

Three weeks before my baby was due back in September, my husband and I were both working full time. My husband had been sick with the flu for a couple of weeks. We thought he'd recovered from the flu, then one day he woke up with headaches that weren't going away.

A few days later they were still kicking around and I suggested he should really go and see someone about them. He spoke to his mother and she advised him to go to the doctor immediately.  

 I received a call from White Cross A&E while I was at work to say that my husband was having what they thought might be a seizure. He didn't know what time of day it was, what day it was, or what his name was. This was a core sign that something was very wrong.  

 My husband was rushed to hospital and I met him there. From this moment onwards, life as we knew it changed forever.

A CT scan picked up a very large white mass in his brain. Then an MRI scan was done, which confirmed a very large tumour, around the size of a golf ball.

This information was relayed to myself and our families at 11 o'clock that night, and they told us they'd be operating on him at 8:30 in the morning, and it's most likely malignant. That was all the warning we got.  

 Earlier that day I'd walked out of the door from work, assuming what my husband had was nothing more than a headache. But I never went back to work, and ended up spending a lot of time in hospital from that day onwards.

 So that first day, while my husband was being operated on, I thought "My God, this is not good, where do I start?"  

 Two years ago we'd sat down with Dean Young and planned our future. We have several properties and mortgages, we were both on good salaries, but what happens if something goes wrong?  

In your early 30s, you don't think you're going to go through something like what we've experienced, but that's what has transpired.  

 Dean had steered us in the right direction and given us sound advice. The component that he really encouraged us to include in our plan was major trauma, such as suffering from a heart attack or cancer.   

There are advances now in medical science that mean many people are surviving these major traumas and that's when you need the money the most, because your life goes on hold and in our case neither of us went back to work in the short to medium term.

I made the call to Tania that morning, a couple of hours into his operation, and said where do I start? She took over. It was fantastic.  

She just made all the right calls, and sorted out our life for us. They were just great. Instead of me having to make five different calls and get put on hold and sent forms, BRAVEday was just the saving grace. If I didn't understand what was going on or how things were going, Tania was just always giving me an update.  

When everything happens in a few seconds, there's no way of preparing for it, even if you're the most organised person or family. They provided that clarity that we never - I would've never been able to do it on my own.   

 Now my husband is undergoing chemo and radiotherapy. Tania assisted with getting into the post surgery treatment better, because the faster you get on top of the tumour, the higher the chances of him surviving. That was the first thing we did that day, check out his medical policy, as he was on a different medical insurance from myself.

That's the thing that's amazing about BRAVEday, they took everything on, regardless of whether they'd done the policy for us or not, they were just helping me in every facet of what my husband needed in order to move forward.  

 We were able to get all the forms processed quickly so that he was in and basically receiving his treatment within two weeks privately. If we'd done it publicly we could've waited 3-6 months, which in tumour time is a lot of growth time. In that respect it was enabling me to move as quickly as possible. That's where they were unbelievably effective for us.

That treatment is continuing today. Over time I've got better at juggling being a mum and being a caregiver and now I'm back at work - I just started yesterday actually - but they've been consistent with checking up and following through with the forms. I've never filled out so many forms in my life, constantly every week, every month I'm filling in forms for his health and updating things.

I remember saying to Tania one day, "what do we owe you?" I expected to pay for their service, which was, I thought, completely normal, but obviously how the system works for them is they receive a certain amount of money up front for selling the policies in the first place. They're doing their part by continuing on the relationship which is just invaluable, and continuing to advise us to get the most out of our policies so we don't have to know the fine print inside out in times of stress.

I wouldn't say we're swimming yet, we're still treading water, but at least we're not sinking. 

I think we've been Dean and Tania's hardest clients so far because they've had so much to fight for, but they've just returned 150% effort for everything they've done. 

And it's ongoing, Tania is still doing things for us now. Constantly chipping away at all the things that need to be done over time. It's not just over a week, it's a journey and it's a relationship that you build with them, two-way street that they've done so much to help us get through this.