by Jane Plume
Shaun and I continued to plan for the boys’ futures. Sometimes he would just ask me to continue to bring them up with the same morals he and Gina had, but that wasn’t going to be a problem. Gina and I had always been on the same wavelength when it came to raising children. Other times he would tell me to make sure I told them off when they needed it and not let them get away with things because they had lost their parents. But mainly he wanted reassurance that I would ensure they never forgot all the little details about their mum and dad.
The original arrangement had been that his brother David and his wife Lisa would have the boys, and he felt guilty about the change in plans. It wasn’t that Shaun wanted them to have the boys any less than me, but since Gina’s death they had had another beautiful baby boy, which meant they had three children under five. It wasn’t fair to them to ask them to spread their attention even further on a full-time basis, and the boys would need a lot of attention. Also, I had been a constant presence in their lives for months now. The boys were used to my way of doing things and my routine, used to me nagging them to tidy up and making sure they were dressed in the morning. They had a horrible time coming up and we felt that as little change as possible might help them just a tiny bit.
When Shaun spoke to David and Lisa they completely understood. Yes, they were upset but promised Shaun that they would be a big part of the boys’ lives, and they have been true to their word. They have been a rock to me and all five children, and been there for us every step of the way. I don’t know what I would have done without them.
During our many chats about the future, we decided the school run back to Anstey for Anni-Mae was going to be out of the question. I didn’t want Ashton to have to go to a childminder before school any more, so the obvious choice was for Anni-Mae to move to a primary school in Shepshed. Shaun and I went together to see the headmaster at Ashton’s school and explained the situation. He said that although the school was full he would put in an application to have Anni-Mae transferred as soon as possible. By now we were into the autumn term and we agreed that we would wait until after the Christmas holidays, as she was already rehearsing for Christmas plays and looking forward to various festive events, so it was decided that she would make the change to the new school in January. Shaun said he really wanted to be around to see that she was happy and settled, which I thought was lovely. He was still worrying about his little princess when everything else around him was so uncertain.
I have received quite a bit of criticism for moving my children and causing upheaval in their lives to save Lewis and Ashton from any more changes, but I felt that this was a time when Lewis and Ashton needed stability. Any day now, they were going to be orphans, and they had lost both their mum and dad in a short space of time. I couldn’t bear to think of dragging them away from their home, a place they could still feel close to their mum and dad with so many memories around every corner, and also away from their school and friends. I really believed that it would be too much. As a mum, of course I felt guilty knowing that Marco was going to be living on his own, though he reassured me daily it wasn’t a problem. Millie would still be at the same college, and could visit her friends whenever she wanted. Anni-Mae was already used to staying at Shaun’s and used to sharing me with Lewis and Ashton, so the only major change for her was moving to a different school. In fact, I was immensely proud of my children, who accepted all this change without one selfish comment and were kind enough to put other people before themselves. Not a bad quality to have in life!
With the decision now made about the boys’ futures Shaun was keen to get everything settled and in place while he was still here so, although his will said that I would become the boys’ legal guardian, he went to court to get an official ruling as well. Shaun deserved the peace of mind.
Things picked up for Shaun in some ways. Although he was constantly battling with pain he put a brave face on most of the time and he felt better without the chemo. He was managing to get on his motocross bike every now and then, so I decided that I would ride one weekend as a fundraiser for LOROS. The hospice had done so much for Shaun and I wanted to give something back. That was a big mistake – I loved it! I caught the bug and continue to ride to this day.
In late August 2012, Shaun decided that he wanted to go on holiday with the boys once again. He was realistic, knowing that this would be his last holiday, so he gave the boys the choice of where they wanted to go and they both said Tenerife, where they had been a couple of years earlier. We booked for a couple of weeks later, for all seven of us. Shaun insisted we deserved a holiday and, in truth, he never knew how he would be feeling when he woke up in a morning and needed someone there to take care of the boys if he wasn’t able to. We had an amazing time, the kids all got on, and I even managed to teach Ashton and Anni-Mae to swim. Shaun struggled a lot in that week and couldn’t even make it down to breakfast a couple of times, but he definitely made up for it when he was able.
One of the best days we had was when we went to the big water park, Siam Park, and Shaun got stuck in, whizzing down all the slides and playing in the waves with the kids. Some very special memories were created on that holiday. At the kids’ disco I was amazed when Lewis and Millie got up to dance with Ashton and Anni-Mae, following the lead of the holiday reps as they did daft actions to all the songs, and laughing together. I caught it on video and to this day I tease them that I am going to put it on Facebook.
• • •
Before we went away, my sister Ann had been taken into hospital and we had been told it was nothing to worry about, just a flare up of her diverticulitis, a digestive disorder that she had long battled with. I was in touch with my family from Tenerife and there was no real change, which I was relieved to hear.
Four days after we got back, on the Tuesday morning, I got a phone call to say Ann had taken a turn for the worse. Panic surged through me. I travelled to the hospital with my brother and was told she had developed pneumonia. She was very poorly but they had started treatment, so we stayed a while then left her to rest and I then took Shaun to LOROS for yet another procedure. As we sat waiting for the consultant to come, my phone rang. It was my nephew, Neil.
‘You need to come back,’ he said, his voice wobbling with emotion. ‘They are withdrawing her treatment.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; I had only left her a couple of hours ago but she hadn’t responded to the antibiotics and now she was slipping away. Shaun told me not to worry about him, to just go, so once again I travelled back to the hospital with my brother. My sister died about half an hour later, with all of us at her side. She was just 61 years old. I was devastated.
Now it was Shaun’s turn to support me. I rushed between Shaun and my family. Shaun kept telling me not to worry about him and the boys, but I did. Besides it kept me busy. Shaun came to Ann’s house when my brothers, niece, nephews and I spoke to the vicar to arrange the funeral. He even accompanied the family to the chapel of rest when we went to see her. I remember feeling guilty at having him there, knowing that Shaun would be thinking that at some point in the not-too-distant future we would be arranging his funeral. But Shaun wouldn’t hear any of it.
‘You have done so much for me and the boys. Let me give something back,’ he said when I told him how I felt. I didn’t argue. I didn’t have the strength.
On the morning of my sister’s funeral, Shaun was due to be admitted to LOROS but he insisted on putting it off, saying that he wanted to support me on this emotional day. As I stood up in church to speak, I had a strange feeling. It was less than two years since I had done this for my best friend. Again, I had a wobble halfway through and couldn’t get my words out. Shaun rose to his feet, ready to come and support me, but my brother, who was in one of the front rows, got there first.
‘Come on,’ he said, squeezing a hand around my waist. ‘You can do it.’ And I did. Another lady that I hoped was proud of me for what I said that day.
After the funeral we went bac
k to the social club where my sister often met with her friends and played bingo and, just as I had after Gina’s death, I felt like I was on the outside looking in. Shaun had to leave early to go to LOROS but I couldn’t have got through the service without his support. There were no words that could thank him enough.
CHAPTER 9
THE DRUGS DON’T WORK
The death of my sister hit me hard. She was quite a bit older than me and, after losing both parents when I was 16, we had become incredibly close. My grief for her made me relive parts of my grief for Gina all over again, reawakening emotions that had never really gone away but had been bubbling under the surface. I missed them both so much and at times was overwhelmed by grief. Two of the ladies that I would turn to when I was struggling with anything had gone. I was so angry with life in general. It was so unfair, there was no rhyme or reason that I could find that made it any easier to deal with.
Occasionally, when I could feel the anger bubbling uncontrollably to the surface, I would go for a walk alone to somewhere open and deserted and scream, but more often than not it surfaced as angry tears that would burn my face as they slid down my cheeks. I would make up any excuse to leave a room so that Shaun, the boys or my own children didn’t have to see me cry. At times I felt angry with my mum and dad, Ann and even Gina. How could they have left me? I knew it was irrational and the overwhelming guilt I felt when I had thoughts like this took my breath away.
To make matters worse, Shaun’s health continued on a steady decline. It got to the stage where none of the painkillers or procedures were helping with his pain any more and the side effects of the drugs were almost as bad as the pain. He was constantly dizzy and nauseous, there were times when he could hardly keep his eyes open and would fall asleep over his dinner or cup of tea. He had to inject himself with painkillers at home, which helped a little bit, but he could only have them every eight hours and they wore off long before that so he would sit watching the clock, wishing time away so that he could have another dose and another short respite from the pain. Yet again he was admitted to LOROS where, after lots of discussions, they decided to give him some radiotherapy. They made it very clear that this was in no way a treatment for the cancer, it was purely palliative, a treatment of the symptoms. They were confident that it would help with some of the pain. Shaun was not only in pain all down his left side, where the pain had always been, but he had constant abdominal pain and excruciating pain in his back. He couldn’t lie flat because of the pain and constantly had an electrical heat pad and hot water bottle behind him so that he could sit without being doubled up. He would have the hot water bottle so hot that it started to burn his skin, but he didn’t care. He had got to the stage where nothing mattered to him any more, the pain was controlling him and he hated it.
He was more than willing to give the radiotherapy a go. As far as he was concerned he had nothing to lose and he would have tried anything. He was fed up with walking around like a zombie, full of drugs that were doing nothing to help him.
It was easy for anyone, including the kids, to see that things were getting a lot worse for Shaun. He would try to have the usual banter with Lewis and Ashton, and chat about their school day and their friends, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. Either he was too tired and falling asleep mid-conversation due to the drugs, or in so much pain that his face would contort as he tried to ride it out. He would sometimes take himself off to his room when it got too much. He felt so guilty that the boys should see him like that and he didn’t want the way he was to be their lasting memory of him.
The consultant decided to do another CT scan and bone scan prior to the radiotherapy to fully reassess things. Shaun had never had a bone scan before but really wasn’t fazed by that. Being prodded and poked had sadly become the norm.
But I knew that deep down Shaun was frightened. He knew that things were not good so whenever I could get family or friends to help with the children I would stay at LOROS, sleeping in a chair at the side of his bed. Nobody deserved to feel that they were alone while going through this hell!
Shaun’s consultant came to see us on the day following the bone scan in mid-October. Just when you thought that nothing could get worse – it did. He explained that the scan had shown even more tumours. As well as all the organs the cancer already occupied, it had also spread to his ribs and his spine, which explained the back pain. I was taken aback. I couldn’t help but think that earlier this year Shaun had been astounding everyone with how well he had been doing, and now this. The consultant went on to say that they were still happy to go ahead with the radiotherapy, but made it very clear that things were not good. I wasn’t brave enough to hold my feelings in check this time and Shaun and I cried together for a long time after the consultant left the room.
‘Will I see Christmas?’ Shaun asked, eventually. I stood motionless unable to speak, and finally I managed to shrug my shoulders.
‘I really don’t know,’ was all I could say.
‘Then I need you to speak to the consultant again for me, I need to know everything.’ he begged.
Reluctantly I agreed, I went and spoke to the nurse who promised as soon as the consultant was back on the ward, she would let me know. Shaun’s good friend Phil arrived half an hour or so later; Shaun and Phil had a great relationship, and the constant banter would always lift Shaun’s spirits. As Phil shook his hand and sat down, Shaun casually announced, ‘I’ve had it, mate. My time’s nearly up.’
Phil looked over at me and it was obvious that he didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. Shaun was constantly teasing him with phrases like, ‘You buy the pints. I’m dying, remember.’ It was just Shaun’s wicked sense of humour, which Phil shared. But Shaun went on to put him in the picture about everything that the consultant had said. As he spoke there was a rap on the door, the consultant popped his head round and, looking from Shaun to me, enquired, ‘I understand you wish to see me?’
I nodded and rose out of my chair. He looked over to Shaun and asked if he was happy to let him discuss things alone with me.
Shaun nodded in agreement. ‘I want you to tell her everything,’ he confirmed.
I was dreading the conversation. The consultant took me into a quiet little relatives’ room. I couldn’t help but think of the hundreds of people that would have sat in that room before me, after being told that their loved ones had passed away.
‘How can I help?’ he asked calmly.
I wasn’t so calm, my heart was racing, my hands were sweating and the lump in my throat was making me feel like I could barely breathe, let alone speak. The consultant waited patiently until I had composed myself, then I repeated the conversation I had had with Shaun.
‘How long?’ I asked.
‘A few months, maybe,’ he replied.
‘How many months?’ I said in quick response. ‘Six? Eight?’
The consultant shook his head slowly. ‘Maybe it would be better if we said weeks rather than months. I’m only talking two or three months.’
I stared at him, open-mouthed, totally taken aback and unable to take this news in. ‘He wants to know if he will be here for Christmas,’ I told him at last.
The consultant sat looking thoughtful for a moment. ‘I really can’t answer that,’ he said.
I gulped down my tears. Christmas was only ten weeks away!
‘We can’t put an exact time on things,’ he explained. ‘But there is just as much chance that he will make it for Christmas as there is that he won’t.’
None of this was what I had expected him to say. In truth, I had hoped that he would chastise me for being silly and say, ‘Goodness me, there will be months yet!’ But it wasn’t to be. The consultant commended Shaun for his bravery and said that he felt that, in light of the kind of person that Shaun was and the way his disease had behaved, Shaun wouldn’t deteriorate much more, that he had reached his worst and would just slip away when the time came.
I tried to let his words sink in. I couldn’t b
elieve that Shaun, who had come so far and been so brave, wouldn’t be able to beat this. I thought back to the first time we had arrived at LOROS. We had passed a room where an old man lay in bed, and the poor soul was just skin and bones, he looked so ill. Shaun had dropped his head after we walked past, then he took my hand and said, ‘Please don’t let me ever get like that.’
I had tried to keep things light-hearted by saying, ‘You won’t ever be like that, look at the size of you!’
Shaun was a big man, not fat in any way but very muscular. He had always looked after himself and he played rugby for over 20 years so he was very well built. Over the last few months, however, he had shrunk from around seventeen stone to twevle, but he had lost it all in proportion. If you didn’t know him you would look at him and think he was as fit as a fiddle – but to those who knew him the change was drastic. Shaun was unhappy with the weight loss so it provided a small glimmer of comfort when the consultant had said he didn’t think that he would deteriorate much more.
The consultant left the room and a nurse came in with a cup of tea for me. ‘Take as long as you need,’ she said comfortingly. The next thing I knew the tea was stone cold and I was sitting on my own in that little room, so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t even heard her leave.
I returned to Shaun’s room where, perhaps surprisingly, Shaun and Phil were in full banter mode, laughing and joking. It was good to see. I joined in with the conversation as much as I could, then Phil stood and said it was time for him to go.
‘Pub’s open,’ he joked.
‘Have a pint for me,’ Shaun said, shaking his hand.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Phil, ‘I intend to have a belly full for you.’ He was smiling but the worry and sadness was evident in his face. He walked round to the side of the bed where I sat. I stood to give him a hug and kiss, and as he left he put his arms around me and simply whispered, ‘Thank you.’ I was so moved, I just nodded, too frightened to speak in case I broke down, and Shaun needed me to be strong. As Phil walked out of the door he turned and said to us both, ‘If you need anything you only have to ask.’ We knew he meant it.
