SO after 18 months of writing down my thoughts every week, this is my last column.

It feels like a very natural ending for reasons that I quite sum up; everything has its own life span that will gradually come to an end and this space for me is no different.

It’s worth noting that there is an enormous difference between something ending peacefully with all ends tied up in a bow, as this column is for me, compared to being made redundant or a life coming to an abrupt end.

While I may not write words here any more, our cancer life rumbles on regardless; we are waiting for scan results where the outcomes vary from pushing on with a chemo regime that relentlessly punishes Greg’s body and mind to not knowing where to turn next for a new treatment option.

This sounds hopeless but I’m not. I’ve realised that hope and denial are inextricably linked, hope is needed in the darkest of times to light a way forward, wherever that path may lead.

In all my thousands of rambling words, if you take away one thing, please let it be this – our NHS is being privatised right now.

It’s not something that could happen, it is happening.

The NHS workers that we know through our extensive contact with them are the best examples of humans I have known.

Their dedication to their jobs, their resilience through tough working conditions and a government who refuses to see their worth is a testament to them.

Greg and I know first hand what it is like to have to pay for treatment from a system we have paid into all of lives and expected to be able to be given free at point of contact in the most dire time in our life.

This is a murky world that is becoming more prevalent; last year in the UK, more than £20 million was raised on crowd funding sites for cancer treatment not available on the NHS.

It is time to fund our NHS properly and fully acknowledge the jewel that it is because once it’s gone, we will never get it back.

Thank you for all of your support; Greg and I will never be able to express how grateful we are for the love and kindness we have received.

Kindness is everything. Oh and wearing silver boots. Onwards…

* Stacey Heale has left her career as a fashion lecturer to focus on her two lively little girls and husband, Delays frontman Greg Gilbert, who was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in November 2016. She launched the viral campaign Give4Greg to raise funds for lifesaving treatment: gofundme.com/give4greg. You can read more at her blog, www.beneaththeweather.com. She has curated an exhibition, Everything is Now, inspired in part by her and Greg's experiences, which is at Solent Showcase gallery until June 11.