LOSING two of her friends to cancer within months of each other spurred Adrienne Wilson to help raise nearly £4,000 for the hospital suite and hospice where they were treated.

Mrs Wilson, of Bewdley, was left devastated when her friend Lidia Floyd, 31, of Kidderminster, died from the disease in February and was hit with a double blow when her schoolmate Nikki Usowicz, of Bewdley, also succumbed to cancer in September, aged 40.

Rather than “dwell” on her loss, Mrs Wilson threw herself into organising a pink pyjama party in their memory to help raise cash for the Millbrook Suite at Kidderminster Hospital and Worc-ester’s St Richard’s Hospice.

With the help of Mrs Usowicz’s friends Paula Niblett and Karen Buchman, the night, which was held at Wribbenhall Parish Rooms, raised £3,700.

A total of £3,000 will go to the hospital suite towards a cold tap machine and £700 to the hospice where Mrs Usowicz spent her last days.

Mrs Wilson said: “The start of the story goes back three years ago when Lidia was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had been misdiagnosed nine months earlier .

“She had a mastectomy and chemo-therapy and then it came back that she had a brain tumour. They operated but she died. I decided then I wanted to do something for the Millbrook Suite.”

Mrs Usowicz, who helped raise thousands of pounds for the Shuttle’s Millbrook Appeal to refurbish the suite, was also diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago and died after it spread to her liver and bones.

“The night was in memory of them but giving something back to the Millbrook Suite,” explained Mrs Wilson, who runs Bewdley Sports Massage, in Kidder-minster Road.

“It was all about having fun. It was incredibly emotional and the emotions came out on the night.

“If Lidia and Nikki were here they would have absolutely loved it. The fact that we raised that amount was breathtaking.”

She said the care at the hospital suite and hospice was “second to none”, adding she coped with her friends’ diagnosis by being there for them as much as she could.

“You just have to get on with it,” she added. “You can’t dwell on it.”