Please Don't Cry

by Jane Plume

  Shaun never got jealous of the relationship, although some men might have resented it. During the time they were separated, Gina and I had built up this huge friendship, and he always respected that. He worked all the hours God sent, including Friday and Saturday nights, and rugby took him out on Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons, so I think, in fact, he appreciated that I was company for Gina.

  As we were never off the phone, I wasn’t surprised on a Wednesday night in 2009 when my phone rang and the caller display told me that it was Gina.

  ‘Shaun’s not well,’ she said, then went on to explain that he had been to rugby training that night, just like every Wednesday, but he hadn’t even managed to complete the warm up properly because he had been so out of breath. Shaun was such a fit and healthy man! He played sport regularly, didn’t smoke and frequently went running so this was out of character for him.

  ‘Maybe he has man flu?’ I laughed. Gina giggled too.

  ‘He’s going to go to the doctor’s tomorrow anyway,’ she replied. ‘He’s probably brewing a chest infection or something.’

  ‘Better to be safe than sorry,’ I said, and we continued our conversation about this and that. No topic was too small for me and Gina to chat about. We chatted about everything, from whether we had got the sausages out of the freezer for tea, to our dreams and aspirations for our children.

  Shaun went to see the doctor the following day and, as we expected, was put on antibiotics for a chest infection. Although he felt a bit under the weather, he wasn’t really poorly and, not being one to give in to a sniffle, still went to work and carried on as normal. But at the weekend he still wasn’t feeling any better so, as we sat round the table having lunch together, Gina and I suggested that he needed to go back to the doctor.

  ‘Trust you,’ Gina teased, light-heartedly. ‘Anyone else would be happy with one lot of antibiotics but, noooo, you want to have an extra lot. You’re just greedy.’

  Shaun laughed and said that he would see how he felt over the next couple of days.

  A few days later he did see the doctor again and the doctor was concerned enough to send him for a chest X-ray. ‘Just routine,’ she had explained. They felt that Shaun may have a touch of pneumonia, so they gave him some more antibiotics and sent him on his way, saying they would be in touch if anything untoward showed on the X-ray.

  Shaun was sent to Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, and he hadn’t even got out of the hospital car park on his way home when his GP rang and said, ‘We need to see you immediately.’ The X-ray had shown some fluid on his lungs, so they thought he had pneumonia and they wanted to do a chest drain to take the fluid off. His left lung capacity was down to the size of a closed fist, which was why he was so breathless. We were all concerned, but not overly so, as pneumonia in a young fit man is usually easily dealt with and they’d already been through it once with little Lewis so we thought we knew what to expect.

  He was admitted immediately and had a chest drain inserted to get rid of the fluid and allow his lung to expand again. Although it’s not a nice procedure Shaun felt the benefit of it immediately. The doctor also took some samples of the fluid and sent them to the lab, explaining that they wanted to test it for signs of cancer.

  That thought hadn’t occurred to Gina and it immediately set alarm bells ringing. She phoned me as soon as she could and explained what had happened. She sobbed down the phone to me, ‘What if it’s cancer?’

  I tried to remain calm and reassure her that hopefully it was just the infection, but deep down I was terrified too.

  Within a couple of days, they got the news of the results. That afternoon, I was pottering about in the kitchen having just got home from work when Gina called me at home, almost hysterical.

  She sobbed down the line as she confirmed our fears. ‘It’s cancer.’ But there was worse to come. She continued through her tears: ‘It’s terminal.’

  Even though I had been worried, I still couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Shaun? It couldn’t be true, there must be a mistake! I couldn’t find any words to comfort my best friend when it was obvious that her heart was breaking. I could see Marco and Millie playing out in the garden and, as Gina was speaking, I thought, ‘How am I going to tell them Uncle Shaun is so poorly? More to the point, what about Lewis and Ashton? How will they take it? What will Gina and Shaun tell them?’ So many questions were racing through my head but at that moment, the one thing I needed to do was get to my friend and be there for her. ‘I’m on my way,’ I managed to say.

  I got in my car and drove straight to Gina and Shaun’s home. Gina was there with her mum and dad as Shaun was still in the hospital. Gina sat on the sofa and I remember thinking that she looked like the one who was ill. She was deathly white, her eyes were swollen from crying and she was shaking from head to toe. I sat down next to her and she crumpled into my arms, sobs racking her body again. We sat there for quite some time. ‘This isn’t fair,’ she kept saying. ‘Why us?’

  I didn’t have an answer for her.

  ‘This isn’t what’s supposed to happen,’ she sobbed. ‘We should grow old together, that’s the normal thing to do. How can I tell Lewis and Ashton that their dad is dying? I can’t lose him, Jane, I just can’t!’

  I felt awful because there was nothing I could say to make her feel better. All I could do was promise her that I would be there for her, for Shaun, and for Lewis and Ashton. I would help in any way that I could.

  Eventually, I asked Gina how Shaun had taken the news.

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘You know Shaun,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t really say a lot.’

  That was true. Shaun was a very private man.

  Gina was trying to pluck up the courage to call Rich, who had been Shaun’s best friend since they were toddlers and now lived in Holland. She wanted him to be one of the first people to know and had tried to call him but couldn’t go through with it. ‘If I tell Rich, it really is real,’ she cried. I offered to make the phone call for her and, after speaking to Rich, I knew just what she meant. He was devastated and promised he would be over on the next available flight.

  After some time sitting in her house, Gina handed me the leaflets that the hospital had given to her. Shaun had a type of lung cancer called adenocarcinoma, where the tumours are so small they are often described as ‘ground glass’, and they had been told that this type of cancer couldn’t be cured.

  The specialist said they would give Shaun chemotherapy to help prevent the cancer from growing or spreading. But even with chemotherapy, Shaun was looking at a grim prognosis. If he had the treatment, he might have six to nine months left. But the cancer would never be cured, even if the chemo gave him a little bit more precious time.

  The treatment started immediately. He had CT scans so they could see the tumours, which don’t show up on X-rays, then they had to drain the fluid out before they could start the chemotherapy due to the risk of infection. He needed to be as well as possible to withstand the treatment.

  The next few days and weeks passed in a blur. I had promised Gina I would be there for her and her family and I was determined to make sure that I was. Sometimes I would accompany Gina to visit Shaun, other times I would have the boys while she went on her own. I would often drop her off at the hospital and then pick her up later to save on parking costs as I only lived a couple of miles away, whereas for Gina it was about an hour’s round trip.

  Shaun and Gina were allocated a nurse specialist named Angela, and what a very special lady she was! They introduced me to her and Gina would often ask me to accompany her to her updates with Angela as she was worried she would forget something that was said. Angela explained everything that Shaun would go though during his treatment and was always sympathetic and supportive, but it was often traumatic for Gina to hear what she had to say, no matter how diplomatically she put it.

  Shaun took the diagnosis bravely but he could be stubborn and bloody-minded at times, and he really didn’t want to accept how ill h
e was. He was still playing rugby, against doctor’s orders, but his attitude was, ‘If I’m dying, I want to do what I want to do while I still can.’ Sometimes Gina would get exasperated with him and tell me, ‘You go in and see him, he won’t listen to me. You can get through to him!’

  In the years since, a number of people have said to me that Gina would often say, ‘I’m sending Jane in to him today, he will listen to her!’ Or she’d tell them that she just needed a break and I was going in her place. It comforts me to know that she felt she could do that and I hope that in some way she found it a help.

  One of these times was just before they took Shaun’s chest drain out. The volume of fluid had been so great that it had split the outer membrane of Shaun’s lung apart. Before removing the chest drain, the doctors had to inject a substance that would stick the lung back together and they explained that, while necessary, the procedure would be extremely painful. Gina couldn’t face seeing Shaun in that much agony but couldn’t leave him to face it alone so she asked me if I would go. I sat and held his hand throughout the whole procedure, as Shaun winced with pain. It felt like hours to me, so I can’t imagine what it was like for Shaun. Eventually, it was over and after an X-ray they confirmed that it had been successful, and the chest drain could be removed, which would allow for the chemotherapy to begin.

  As I was leaving the hospital that day, Shaun’s brother David and his partner Lisa were just arriving. I remember us all having a cry in the corridor together but I honestly don’t know who my tears were for – Shaun, Gina, myself, the family? I guess there were tears for everyone.

  Gina and Shaun told different people as and when they were ready, and they had decided that they would be as honest with Lewis and Ashton as they could. Ashton was only four so he understood very little, he just knew Daddy wasn’t feeling well. Lewis was ten so they used the word ‘cancer’ when they told him that Daddy was ill, but they only gave him the information that he asked for.

  He never asked the question, ‘Will you die?’

  By a cruel twist of fate, Shaun’s dad had also had lung cancer, and had had part of his lung removed, but it was a different type and he didn’t need any chemotherapy. Lewis knew that granddad had had lung cancer and was now fine, so in his mind I suspect he may have been thinking, ‘Daddy’s going to be okay.’ Sometimes, when Shaun was in hospital and Lewis was with me, he would ask, ‘When will Daddy be better so that he can come home?’ I didn’t want to lie to him so I would say, ‘Daddy’s too poorly to come home yet but hopefully the doctors can make him feel better soon.’ I was always careful to say make him feel better. We already knew that this was something that Shaun was never going to get better from.

  • • •

  I had to break the news to Marco, Millie and Anni-Mae, to whom Shaun was like a dad. Anni-Mae, like Ashton, didn’t really understand, whereas Marco and Millie, at 15 and 13, knew exactly what it meant from seeing TV programmes and having lessons at school. They were devastated. It moved me so deeply that Marco cried, something that now he was in his teens he didn’t do, at least not in front of me. I had expected tears from Millie but not from Marco. They both appeared quite angry, ‘Why Shaun?’ asked Marco. ‘He doesn’t smoke.’

  I was so touched when they said, ‘What about Lewis and Ashton, do they know? Is Auntie Gina okay? When can we see them?’ They had so many questions, most of which none of us could answer.

  I felt just as I had with Gina – helpless. It was horrible not being able to make it all better. I lost count of the number of times I wished that I had a magic wand.

  After the initial shock Gina became very brave, at least for the most part, and especially in front of Shaun. I will always admire her for that. But there were times when we were alone that she would crumble. She felt cheated; it was all wrong, they were supposed to grow old together, supposed to see their boys grow up, marry, have children. They should have had their whole lives together and now that future had been snatched away. What could I say or do to make it any easier? Nothing! All I could do was be there for my friend and her family. Night after night, I wiped away Gina’s tears and held her as she sobbed into my shoulder.

  Shaun seemed to handle the news remarkably well – but how much of it was a front, I guess we will never know. One day, I was at their house when friends came to visit and a comment was made about how pale Shaun looked. Deadpan, Shaun simply replied, ‘I am dying, you know.’ They looked horrified, then Shaun burst out laughing. That was so typical of him, always the joker. Gina told him off and his friend gave him a playful smack and the visit continued with no feelings of awkwardness.

  The chemotherapy regime was sorted out and commenced quickly. Shaun was to have chemotherapy every three weeks and there would be six treatments in total. Gina and Shaun always went out for a ‘pre-chemo meal’ on the Monday night before his treatment so they could spend some quality time together.

  Shaun handled the chemotherapy brilliantly. On the day of chemo he would have to spend the whole day at the hospital as toxic drugs were pumped into him. Many people are sick and unable to get out of bed for days after the treatment, but he didn’t let it hold him back. He was still going to work and he’d only have one day off after each dose, then he carried on life as normally as possible.

  Gina and Shaun often popped into my house on the way home from the hospital as the route to hospital took them past my front door. On most treatment days, Shaun would walk in with a cheery, ‘Get the kettle on then!’

  ‘How ya doing?’ I would ask, as casually as possible.

  ‘You know me, strong as a bull,’ he would laugh.

  Occasionally, though, he would look drained and his normal sense of humour would be absent. Even for Shaun, there must have been times when it was too much for him to hide how he was truly feeling.

  Although the chemo was a horrible thing to go through, Shaun made remarkable progress. The cancer was stable and he felt well in himself and he was put on Tarceva – the trademark name of erlotinib – an inhibitor drug that would hopefully continue to do what the chemotherapy had started by preventing the cancer cells from multiplying, keeping the cancer at bay. They caused a bright red skin rash that Shaun was very self-conscious about but they seemed to do the trick, so he wasn’t about to let that bother him. Gina continued to be his rock, by his side at every appointment and constantly nagging him about taking his medication and looking after himself.

  • • •

  During this difficult time, life continued and we tried to snatch some fun and laughter wherever we could. My nephews were still racing sidecars and we would all go along to watch the meeting together. I had grown to love the sport too, so much so, in fact, I got my licence to be a passenger, which is not as passive a role as it sounds. Our job is not to sit demurely in a sidecar while the rider on the bike does all the work – it’s much more dangerous than that. We are dressed in leathers and hanging off the sidecar to give the vehicle momentum when going round corners and negotiating tight bends. It can be pretty hairy at times, with bikes and sidecars flipping over if not handled properly.

  One Wednesday when I was out for a day of practice at Mallory Park, a track that we were lucky enough to have just a few miles from our home, Gina came along to watch with Lewis and Ashton. I raced around, hanging out the side of the sidecar, the wind rushing past my helmet, and I could see Gina and the boys waving their arms madly at the side of the track cheering me on.

  Towards the end of the session, as we came around one of the last corners travelling at 65 mph, I was feeling the strain of this exhausting physical sport. I shifted my hand across to get a better hold for the corner – and somehow managed to miss the hold.

  A feeling of horror swept over me as I was thrown loose from the sidecar. The next thing I knew I was rolling over and over on the tarmac. I remember cursing as I was wearing my new helmet, and there was going to be no way it would get through this unscathed. I came to a stop, got my bearings and stood up.

&nbs
p; My nephew had pulled the sidecar up some feet away down the track and I raised my hand to let him know I was all right, just as a marshal came running to my aid.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he shouted to me.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I answered. My arm and hand were hurting but not enough for anything to be broken and my backside was throbbing. The biggest injury was to my pride. I was so annoyed with myself.

  My brother Mick and nephew came running down from the paddock as I walked across the track and once they had made sure I was all right, they had a bit of a laugh at my expense. I didn’t mind, I was just miffed that I couldn’t get straight back on.

  As I got back to the racing van I could hear my mobile telephone ringing inside, I grabbed it and saw ‘Gina’ flashing on the screen. I answered it but before I could speak I could hear Gina crying. ‘Is she okay? Is she hurt?’ She was speaking so fast her words were falling over each other.

  ‘Gina, it’s me,’ I said. ‘I’m fine, calm down. I’m a bit bruised but nothing a hot bath won’t solve.’

  She switched from panic to telling me off. ‘Don’t ever do that to me again!’ she shouted.

  ‘Believe me, I never meant to,’ I laughed.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ she chastised, but I could hear the relief in her voice and within a few seconds she was taking the mickey, along with my family.

  ‘You’re meant to hold on,’ she laughed. ‘That’s the whole point of being a passenger!’

  When I spoke to her later that evening on the telephone she said that it had looked very dramatic when I fell off. Apparently Ashton had turned round and very casually said, ‘Well, I think Auntie Jane is dead.’ Out of the mouths of babes, eh?

  One weekend soon after, my nephews were competing at a British Superbikes meeting at Mallory Park and, unbeknown to Shaun, I’d made some phone calls and arranged for him to go and meet one of the big teams and get some signed memorabilia. We invited them to the race meeting to watch Stephen and Paul, which they gratefully accepted, especially as Shaun would get to see some of his idols race. When they arrived, we took them off to one of the top team’s race lorries where they got to look at the bikes close up and meet the riders, one of whom, Richard Cooper, spent a lot of time talking to Shaun. He was given a team jacket, which the riders all signed, and he was really chuffed and very surprised. Everyone was very friendly and Gina and Shaun appeared to be having a ball.