In my own words

Following on from the article in the Irish Independent I wanted to share this article on our story in my own words.

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Two tiny white spots, less than 2mm each, that’s what the surgeon said. Two tiny white spots that made all the difference in our lives. The difference between hope and despair, between a possible chance at a future and no future at all, between watching him survive cancer and watching him die from cancer.

I love a song by Sally Speltman “I had a shot at what I thought was the best day of my life… now it’s gonna end.” That’s the way I felt the day my husband’s surgery for pancreatic cancer was unsuccessful. Martin was diagnosed at 39 years of age, a fit healthy man with little vices. Its one of the worst cancers out there — the stats aren’t good. It is the only major cancer with a single digit survival rate. Just 9% of people with pancreatic cancer will live five years beyond diagnosis. The best hope is a complicated surgical procedure to remove part of the pancreas and the tumour. After nine months of very aggressive chemotherapy and then a course of radiotherapy to reduce the tumour, we got the good news that he was finally a candidate for this surgery — the Whipple. The tumour had shrunk away from the portal vein enough to enable the surgeon attempt the procedure. It was a seven hour operation and all the potential risk and side effects were outlined to me. Death on the operating table, a spread to the lympnodes, not being able to remove the tumour because of where it was…the possibility of the cancer having spread to the other organs was not really considered as nothing had been picked up in CT scans prior to surgery. So it was devastating to get the call that they had found two tiny white spots in the liver during surgery and they had come back as cancerous. It was even more devastating to be the person an hour later who was there at his side when he opened his eyes in recovery and gave me a thumbs up, only for me to have to shake my head with tears in my eyes and respond with a thumbs down.

But that’s the impact of pancreatic cancer, the absolute crucifying blow of families who have to live with the consequences of this ‘environmental’ cancer. The spread of the cancer meant we had no hope. And means that five months later, during Pancreatic Cancer awareness month, I sit in Marymount Hospice and prepare to say goodbye to my husband of 12 years and the father of my three children.

Martin was first diagnosed in July 2017, he had started to turn jaundice and while the GP suspected hepatitis, medical tests at the Bon Secours hospital in Cork revealed a mass blocking his liver. We lived for a few days hoping it may be gallstones before an analysis of a tissue sample confirmed cancer. We met a surgeon a few days later who gave us the frightening news that Martin’s tumour looked like it was attached to a portal vein, meaning surgery was only possible if they could shrink it back. However we then spent a further few months in limbo when further scopes proved ‘inconclusive’. Eventually in October, after another CT scan which indicated the tumour was likely to be in a hard to reach part of the pancreas, we had to decide to take the risk of starting treatment without a fully positive biopsy. We started treatment. While the treatment was successful in reducing the tumour, the cancer had started to spread by the time we got to surgery in May of this year. Martin recovered from surgery well enough to make it home for his son’s first holy communion a week later while we adjusted to a terminal diagnosis. When we returned for a follow up scan in August, they indicated it had spread to the liver and the colon and despite starting another round of chemotherapy he started to deteriorate rapidly.

Despite what feels now like way too short a time, our last eighteen months has not all been about cancer and this fight. Life goes on particularly when you have three young children; it’s about birthdays and milestones at school, and cups of coffee, and getting for a game of golf on occasion or buying a new bike even if he did only get to ride it about 3 times! It was also about watching Martin go through two rounds of interviews for a Sergeant’s post in the guards while on treatment and successfully achieving the list last month, which has been a real source of pride in his final days. It was about truly learning the meaning of good friends and how important family really are to keeping the show on the road, and also about hospitals and all the amazing staff who become much more than health sector workers when they are by your bed night and day in your darkest days.

But through all of that I had some hope. Because the reality is that no matter how much you understand the low chance of survival, or eventually adjust to a terminal diagnosis, you never give up hoping. I spent my nights researching innovative treatments, wondering how we might fund a trip to the states, worked with our oncologist to explore how to get him on a clinical trial in Belfast and followed Vicky Phelan’s journey with immunology wondering if this could offer some hope of fighting back. It is only now as I sit beside him in Marymount Hospice knowing we’re entering the last few days, that I can have to accept he is dying.

I wish to see his pain and suffering come to an end and I know so many other families have gone through and continue to go through losing a loved one to cancer. While I now want peace for Martin, I’m not at peace with how this disease has ravaged a healthy man’s life so quickly and how it offered so little opportunities for positive outcomes all the way through. In this month which seeks to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer, I want to shine a spotlight on the painful legacy so we may one day start to change this story for another family.