My Wife Has Cancer

My wife has cancer.

The reality hit. How was I going to navigate this situation?

Cancer is the most frightening word in the English language in my personal opinion.

In 2016, I lost one of my best and closest friends to cancer. Bill Mclean sat opposite me for 16 years on the trading desk.

Debbie was diagnosed in January 2020.

I will never forget driving her to the first appointment with the surgeon. The nurse came in and told Debbie she had cancer.

I underestimated cancer. I underestimated chemotherapy and radiation. I underestimated the emotional, mental, psychological, physical, spiritual, and financial costs of cancer.

A cousin had warned me that the toll is tougher on the caregiver. I underestimated that and asked for help.

During cancer, the patient sees the surgeon, chemo oncologist, radiation oncologist, and various nurses. After radiation treatment then the interdisciplinary team of physiotherapists, kinesiologists, counselors, psychotherapists, and occupational therapists become part of the patient’s recovery.

Welcome to my series on cancer. I am doing this series not only to benefit women but also I personally believe it will be cathartic for me. I want to write about how to become a better caretaker, how to communicate with cancer patients, how to eat better, stories of hope, patience, resilience, and gratitude.

My first interview in this series was with Dr. Reyzan Shali MD, the author of Teaming up Against Cancer: Powerful Ways to Beat the Odds and Take Your Life Back. I talked to  Satmeen who is an occupational therapist with Lifemark Physiotherapy.

I talk to Adam Birr who lost his wife to cancer. In my sales and writing career, I have interviewed thousands. This interview is one of the most moving yet uplifting interviews I have done.

I have learned so much from Adam. Through grief, he has stayed strong. He has stayed positive and I love his saying ‘God is good’. Check out his blog, I am sure you will be inspired.

Adam, I have to be honest with you. A part of me does not want to do this interview because I feel guilty. A part of me was hurting. But I truly believe that I need to comfort the caretakers and make a difference in the lives of those going through cancer. Tell my audience a little about you?

I am 48 and from the south of England, but for the last 21 years, I have lived in Scotland.  I have four wonderful children aged 9 to 16.  Three boys and a girl.  I am Software Engineer and graduated from Imperial College, University of London, but I also have spent time working as a full-time church minister. It was during this time, while in the full-time ministry, in 2001 I married a beautiful Scottish woman.  We moved to Scotland and in 2016 at the age of 42 was diagnosed with breast cancer at stage 2a.  About a year later, it returned and was at stage 4.  After three and half years the illness took her life. I currently live in a town called Paisley, part of greater Glasgow, which is famous for producing the famous Paisley pattern material.  I am an active Christian and enjoy spending time in the Scottish countryside.

I periodically write articles in two blogs I have published.  One about various thoughts on my relationship with God and what I am learning. The other is about being the widower to a wife who died of cancer.

My wife is Scottish. I noticed a lump in December 2020. I told her to go and check it out. She was scared. Her own mother had died at 38 of Ovarian cancer. However, between ultrasound, MRI, and all the tests, the call came. The other side said ‘bring someone with you’. I knew then that she was positive. Walk me through your process?

In the first quarter of 2016, my wife didn’t know if she had something or not.  She put off getting checked out.  At one point she phoned the doctor’s surgery to make an appointment, but she called in the afternoon.  The doctor she spoke to was a little short in his speech and tone with her and asked her if it was a life or death situation, she said ‘no’ and put the phone down.  A few weeks later, she had pain in her breast, I told her that she needed to make an appointment for the next day.  She did and this time was seen by a GP who used to be a breast surgeon.  She felt something abnormal and referred her to the breast clinic at a local hospital.

I was a little scared.  Before the appointment, we walked around the hospital praying.  In the initial consultation, the doctor went through a bunch of questions covering symptoms and family history.  Almost all the answers to the questions were negative.  I started to feel more relaxed.  Maybe this was a cyst or something similar.  I waited as my wife had a mammogram, at this point, I wasn’t too concerned.  This was routine I told myself.  Lots of people have scares.  I started to enjoy reading my book.  The next appointment that day was the ultrasound.  I looked at her on the bed of the consultation room.  I loved her.  She was gorgeous.  She was really attractive.  The ultrasound doctor came in and said that the mammogram has shown something, but it wasn’t a cyst.  I recall that feeling of the blood draining from my face and down my body.  “What else could it be?” I just kept asking myself in my head.  The only answer I could come up with was cancer. Now I was really scared.  I started going into shock.  What was going to happen to my wife? I didn’t want her to change.  She was so lovely.  They took biopsies there and then.  I remember my wife finding that quite sore.  We then sat back in the clinic waiting room.  It was terrifying.  Previously the clinic waiting room was full of people.  Now, there were just us and another couple.  No one spoke.  I couldn’t read my book anymore.  I was just very scared.

We went into the same consultation room that we went into initially.  This time a breast cancer support nurse followed us in.  The results of the biopsy were back.  It was cancer.  I didn’t know what to do.  I just stared at my wife.  She took the news like she had been told that the bus was late.  “Oh really”, she said in a disappointed tone.  No tears.  I could have cried so easily.  But as her husband, I didn’t want Kirstie to feel like she had to emotionally support me.  I held back the tears, they were there, but they didn’t come out.

In the days afterward,  I remember receiving a message from a biblical teacher friend of mine.  He has lost his wife a few years earlier.  He just said, “God is good”.  Because it came from him, his words carried so much weight.  His words are also true.  God is good, all the time.  The bigger picture is good.  In the end, it didn’t go the way we prayed and hoped, but the bigger picture is still very good.

I will never forget the day of the surgery. I had just got a new job and a friend took her to the hospital. I came home to a foot of snow outside my home and my daughter had gone to a teen event. It was a cold dark lonely night. Can you relate?

My wife had surgery twice.  Once to remove a breast and once to for a total hip replacement as cancer had spread to her femur.  The first surgery I found was the most difficult.  I dropped her off at the hospital and then spent the morning with my four-year-old son.  We went to a giant indoor soft play arena.  I was crawling through tunnels and sliding down slides.  It took my mind off what was about to happen to my wife.  Just after lunch, I dropped him off at nursery.  I didn’t know what to do.  I drove to my work car park and sat in the car.  I found it very difficult to think of my wife going through surgery and having a body part removed.

A friend had sent me some scriptures, so I read them and I prayed.  Including this one: Isaiah 43:5-7

“Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, And gather you from the west. “I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ And to the south, ‘Do not hold them back ‘ Bring My sons from afar And My daughters from the ends of the earth, Everyone who is called by My name, And whom I have created for My glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made.”

It was a difficult afternoon.  However, I wasn’t doing anything.  It was my wife who I really felt for.

I picked the children up and went home.  To be honest, I wasn’t the best husband at that time when it came to housework, but now it needed to change.  I had to repent.  I did repent and over the coming years, I would repent more.  I learned how to use the washing machine.  I made sure that the house remained tidy.  Getting all the children in bed each night felt like such a victory.

Eight weeks of chemo turned to 8 months and then COVID. I literally saw my wife go from a healthy person to a bald concentration camp survivor. It breaks you. Debbie asked why? I asked what now? Help me understand your mindset?

That must have been very hard for you.  My story is slightly different.

After her initial tumor was removed, it was sent away for a genetic test called the Oncotype dx test.  The results give a perceived 1% percent of the benefit of chemotherapy over not having it.  She really wanted to avoid chemotherapy.  As the perceived benefit was so small, she chose not to have the chemotherapy.  But within a year, cancer had returned.  Should she have had the chemo?  We don’t know.  It is possible to get really messed up contemplating the what-ifs because they don’t go anywhere.  It is best to leave it all in the hands of God and say the best choice was made at the time given the information that was available to my wife and the doctors.

She didn’t have traditional chemotherapy initially after she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.  She was given a targeted drug called Palbociclib.  This was to slow the progression of cancer.  She got about nine months from this drug.  They then gave her a number of other drugs before they gave her chemotherapy.  During this time, she didn’t lose her hair.  Although she had lost a breast and had a large scar down her leg from the hip replacement, she still looked stunning.  To me, she defined beauty.  I knew this time wouldn’t last, so I treasured every day with her during this time.  We lived between scan appointments.  All life happened between these appointments every three months.  Very little could be planned outside of these windows.  Holidays abroad were taken at a week’s notice.

This was still a very emotional time.  I would often cry on the way to work, walking from the railway station to the office.  I would get the office door, pull myself together and start work without anyone knowing the emotions felt a few moments before.

Eventually, the time for chemo came.  It did work.  It did shrink the tumors for about six months.  But she did lose her hair and the steroids also had some unwelcome side effects too.  She now looked like a cancer patient.  This was a difficult time.  It now felt very real.  The steroids would give her huge amounts of energy for a day or two, but when it had worn off, she was pretty much floored through lack of energy due to the chemo.  In spite of this, we still had some great times in our marriage.  I feel this was a time when I lost a lot of who my wife was, yet we still had so much in our marriage to be grateful for.  She was a very stoic and determined woman.  I admired her so much.

I clung to gratitude, hope, and faith. I faltered and failed many times. For me, the tire had burst on the highway of Christianity. What was going through your mind?

When my wife was first diagnosed, I remember being really attached to the song Forever, by Chris Tomlin.  The lyrics include the lines:

Forever, God is faithful

Forever, God is strong

Forever, God is with us

Forever

From the rising to the setting sun

His love endures forever

And by the grace of God, we will carry on

His love endures forever

It was a reminder of the greatness of God.  The eternal nature of God and that there is an awesome bigger picture.  I could only get through by being focused on the bigger picture of heaven.

This attitude helped when my wife was diagnosed with secondary cancer a few months later.  The secondary diagnosis was probably the hardest day of my life.  The breast support nurse who was normally so upbeat was just down.  Previously she was always so positive in previous meetings.  This time, the news was dire, there was no positive spin.  The ultrasound doctor we had seen before had a look of terror on her face.  I and my wife were the most positive person around the clinic.  We certainly took our strength from God during that appointment.

I have learned a lot about care, how to communicate, and compassion. Share with me what you have learned through this process?

I learned to be a husband.  I learned what it means when Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).  I don’t think I was a bad husband before cancer and I certainly loved my wife dearly.  But on reflection, I was too selfish.  Too much focus on getting my own needs met and not enough thinking about the needs of my wife.  Cancer changed this.  I did a lot of self-reflection and tried to change and be the person I needed to be for my wife.  Each time I thought I had arrived, there would be another scan result and normal would be defined again causing me to re-evaluate things again and dig deeper in repenting of my selfishness and learning new ways to love my wife.

Congrats on being a dating man. Was it tough to put your hand back on to the dating scene?

Thank you! Dating and getting remarried was something that my wife and I would often speak about after she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.  Generally, these conversations were initiated by my wife.  We both found these conversations hard, to begin with, but as time went on the more it became a natural progression.  My wife would at the end start to offer names to me of potential people I could date.

The thing I was most apprehensive about was the insecurities of falling in love again.  All the self-doubt and wondering if had said the wrong thing or had my words misconstrued.

I married my wife because I greatly admired her faith and the love she showed towards me.  I married my best friend.  My biggest fan and my heroine.

A few months after my wife passed, I decided I would start to build some new friendships with spiritually-minded single women, none of whom I knew while my wife was still alive.  Initially, this wasn’t about dating, I just wanted to get to know some people with whom I could become friends.  I became good friends with one woman in particular and we started to go on virtual dates over zoom and I eventually asked her if should come from the USA to visit me in Scotland.  A lot of the insecurities I was fearful of didn’t materialize.  I think mainly because we focused on being each other’s friends and had initially built our friendship together with God at the center through praying together and sharing the bible with each other.  We surrender our relationship before God and ask him to open doors that should be closed if our relationship is one that is approved of or close doors which should be open if our relationship is not God’s will.

Give advice to all those Christians who are dealing with cancer or have family and friends dealing with it?

Life is fragile, but the truth is that it is fragile for everyone, but most of the time we ignore this fact.  Celebrate life.  Wake up each morning and decided to be joyful.  Today is a great day (Lamentations 3:22-23).  God is good.  For the majority of her life with stage 4 cancer, my wife had the attitude of “I’m not dead yet”.  Yes, there was pain. Yes, life was limited and she couldn’t do all she did before.  But she still enjoyed life and took every day as a blessing.  Who was I to argue with this?  It was a great way to live.

My advice would be to always remember the bigger picture, even in challenging times.  God is good.  Look up and see God rather than the challenge.  Tell those around you how much you love them and tell them often – one day you might not be able to tell them, so tell them today and every day, and show them in all the ways you know-how.

I hope all this has been helpful.