Coast Breakfast host Toni Street shares emotional message from her late brother’s nurse: ‘Surreal’

TV and radio personality Toni Street with husband Matthew France. Photo / Doug Sherring

Coast Breakfast host Toni Street has shared a heartfelt message she received from a woman who looked after her late twin brother in hospital before his death.

She shared a screengrab of the message to her Instagram page, writing in the caption: “Got sent this message today ... it’s from a woman who nursed my twin brother Lance when he was in hospital with leukemia. Social media can be a remarkable thing sometimes.”

The message itself reads, “Hi Toni, my name is Angie Green and I worked at Princess Mary Hospital in Ward 35 from 1967 to 1987.

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A post shared by Toni Street (@tonimstreet)

“I remember Lance well, I prayed for him every night I was on willing him to get into remission. It was not to be sadly, I am now 77 and I still say a prayer for him, I think of you and your loss. Kind wishes, Angie.”

Street lost her twin brother Lance to leukemia when the pair were just 18 months old. She later wrote a book about her grief, Lost and Found, which also touches on her auto-immune disease and surrogacy journey.

To receive a message like this all these years later was “a complete surprise”, she tells the Herald.

“I got goosebumps when I read it. To hear from someone that actually met and cared for my twin brother was surreal. It felt very special,” she says.

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A post shared by Toni Street (@tonimstreet)

Street says she responded and thanked Green for her words, adding, “I also read the message to my Mum and she was blown away.”

The Coast host says the message touched her as it showed how platforms like Instagram can be used for good.

“Social media can be full of people who love to give their negative opinions on things. This is a wonderful example of how you can find someone via Instagram, it shows it can be a great force for good too,” she says.

“I think social media can be a wonderful way of connecting different age groups that might not otherwise get to interact.”

Ahead of her book’s release in 2021, she told Newstalk ZB host Mike Hosking, “I think people have widely known that I’ve lost siblings, but I don’t think they’ve got any idea of the detail, how it happened and the impact it had on my family.”

Street’s parents Geoff and Wendy Street welcomed another baby, a daughter named Tracy, soon after Lance’s death, but tragically she only lived for a couple of hours.

The family were dealt another devastating blow following the death of her younger brother Stephen at age 14 when the quad bike he was riding rolled. Street was just 18 at the time.

The radio host said that writing the book was a cathartic experience, and it was her mum who encouraged her to tell her story.

“I was really nervous about that because I didn’t want to upset my parents any further and make them relive what happened. But I think it’s important to because when you have children dying in a family it’s not something you sit around and talk about a lot - it’s too painful for everyone. So I think it was really good for all of us to do that, properly now with years under the belt.”