That’s because Patrick died in November 2023 after battling testicular cancer for more than two years. He was just six days shy of his 19th birthday.
“ There’s no day that goes past without you thinking of him,” Raymond said.
“You wouldn’t think you would, but you actually do.”
He jumped at the chance to take part in the Longest Day fundraiser, where participants play four rounds in a day, running from sunrise to sunset.
His club, Greendale, put a team together and Raymond was one of nine playing, split into three groups of three, who started at 5am on December 21 and didn’t finish until 6pm.
The club has raised more than $10,000 – the second most of any group in the country, behind the Otago Golf Club – while Raymond himself has raised nearly $3000, putting him in 11th place in New Zealand individually earlier this week.
The 57-year-old said he never thought the amount of money would reach those levels.
Teams set targets on the Longest Day website for how much money they wanted to raise. Greendale increased its goal as interest grew.
“ We didn’t have expectations initially. We originally put two and a half thousand, then we upped that to five thousand. When we hit that target, we said, let’s go to seven and a half,” said Raymond.
“We’re just stoked we went out and we’ve been able to raise as much as we have. When people have put money forward, it’s not been five bucks or 10 bucks, it’s been 50, 100, 200 – some good donations have come through.”
Patrick was diagnosed with stage four testicular cancer in May 2021. He had been struggling to sleep because of a lump in his groin.
He told his parents about it, and mum Julie-Ann took him from the family home in Charing Cross to Christchurch Hospital that night, with Raymond staying to look after Patrick’s younger brother Sebastian.
“ Initially I thought, is that a hernia?” Raymond said.
“But I thought, ‘god, it’s too low for a hernia’. Things go through your mind but you’re not sure, because you have no idea what this lump is.”
That was Friday, and by Saturday morning doctors had flagged it was likely to be testicular cancer and were operating on Monday to remove one of Patrick’s testicles.
“ You do think the worst scenarios,” Raymond said.
“And then when you talk to the doctors, they say ‘this is very treatable, it’s a common type one where the survival rate is quite good’. Unfortunately for Patrick, we found out later on it was stage four, so it was a bit further on than we thought.”
He said Patrick dealt with the situation okay.
“ (Patrick) was okay, my wife didn’t want to mention the word cancer around him too much.
“He was just getting treatment – being in hospital because of his lump, and actually when he did have chemo he was pretty good about it.”
“ I don’t think it’s a formal part of their education that they receive at school.
“You understand contraception and all those other things, but not necessarily testicular cancer, because the thing with it is there might be a lump, but there won’t be any pain,” she said.
“People are very quick to go, ‘oh, that might go away’, but it doesn’t necessarily always happen.
“My biggest concern is the speed at which it can travel through your body, Patrick was stage four when he was diagnosed, it was already through his lymph node system and it was into his lungs.”
‘”He had a great sense of humour, he enjoyed farm machinery, and playing with his mates, computer games.”
Raymond said his death obviously still hurt himself, Julie-Ann, and Patrick’s brother Sebastian, 18, and sister Sophie, 22, but it was getting easier to cope with.
“It definitely is slightly easier to talk about it now.
“I don’t get quite as emotional, even though I never thought I’d be emotional before Patrick’s death, and I was really stunned at just how devastating it was, but it has got easier,” he said.
“It comes in waves, but the waves are smaller waves, if that makes sense. There’s gonna be days there where you just think about him, and you go, ‘he would love that’, or ‘he would enjoy this’.
“You have that little tear in your eye when that comes through.”
He hopes the money raised will be beneficial for those and their families who are affected by cancer.
A friend of Raymond who works for St John said money raised from events like the Longest Day would ideally be used to fund transporting people with cancer to hospital for treatment.
“ There’s also potentially research as well, hopefully for a cure, but that will cost millions and millions.
“I think this is more towards people that are in financial need, in that regard, they do need that support.
• Donate to Raymond Williams’ fundraiser at longestday.org.nz/raymond-williams or scan the QR code.
- The average age of a testicular cancer patient is 33 years old.
- Every year in New Zealand, on average, 170 men are diagnosed with testicular cancer and eight will die.
- Testicular cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in New Zealand teens and young men, typically aged between 15-44 but can occur at any age.
- Visit testicular.org.nz/checking-your-balls/ to learn how to perform a testicular self exam – it takes just a couple of minutes.
