What Losing My Fiancé to Brain Cancer Taught Me About Life
Lessons learned from crushing grief and adversity.
Glioblastoma. That word still scares the shit out of me.
It was a couple of years ago when we received the news. I’d been with my girlfriend, Charlotte, from the age of thirteen through to twenty. Seven years. What most people thought was just a high-school fling spanned across almost a decade of courtship, memories, and laughter.
Falling head over heels for someone is a bittersweet experience. Exhilarating highs send you soaring above the clouds — the first kiss, butterflies, and everything else that comes with love. But the bliss of those highs is always discolored by the fear of an impending fall.
My fall certainly came. Charlotte was generally well and healthy, studying to become a nurse at university when it happened. Unusual symptoms came crashing in out of nowhere. What started with stress developed into dysphasia and chronic headaches.
Then, Charlotte’s eyes became misaligned. The right side of her body started to weaken. We knew there was something seriously wrong.
After an evening of the most intense anxiety I’ve ever felt, waiting for scan results and a glimmer of hope until the early hours of the morning, a team of…
