Don’t forget to talk – Gary learned by asking for help support was there for him after losing wife Karen to breast cancer
My wife, Karen passed away, aged 58, on 27th September 2017
It was February 2016. We had been away on a family holiday in Wales. When we returned home, our two children went back to their own homes, and the next day I was driving Karen to work, and she said, “stop, we need to talk. I found a lump whilst I was on holiday.” She didn’t want to say anything before because she didn’t want to spoil the holiday.
Panic set in, and we were really concerned about it, so we went straight to our local surgery, and they said ‘go straight to the hospital.’
We spent all day there. They did lots of tests on Karen and they took a biopsy, which was very painful for her.
Within a couple of days, we had the results, and we found out that it was breast cancer. It was a massive shock. It was just something we didn’t expect at all. Karen was only 57 at the time, very young. You try to explain that to yourself. You can’t comprehend what’s going on. It happened so quickly.
The staff at the hospital were just phenomenal. We went to see everybody. They talked us through, in finite detail, exactly what they found. They wanted to get some more tests done, so she had X-rays, and within a very short space of time, they decided that they needed to do a mastectomy.
She had the operation in April 2016, and they said everything was clear. The lymph nodes were all clear. They were really happy with the operation. Karen was literally let out the same day from hospital, which was fantastic. We were on a super high, but they wanted to see her back to do a bit of chemo as well, just to make sure everything was OK.
She started the chemo, and they took X-rays as well. We were called to the oncologist, and he sat us down and said, “I’m sorry to say this, but the cancer has spread.” We sat there and we just sobbed. I couldn’t control myself. Karen was obviously upset, but she held it together. I struggled. I couldn’t cope with it at all. The oncologist said that the chemo would carry on.
Karen continued with the chemotherapy, and after each chemo, we visited the Oncologist and she had X-rays as well, which showed it hadn’t changed very much, or it’s changed a little bit, or it looks a little bit better.
But the more time went on, the more we should have realised this isn’t going away.
Eventually, it got to the stage where you could see from the X-rays that the lungs had been affected as the cancer had spread. It was just building up, and there wasn’t going to be any way that it was going to get better.
The oncologist was very clear and didn’t pull any punches. Very early on he said to Karen, “we’re probably looking at 12 to 18 months as a time scale.” I remember just sitting there and we didn’t say anything. We didn’t know what to say. We were probably there for about an hour. We just sat there, and we were just numb from the shock.
Karen finished work straight away because of the chemo. She was 57 at the time and I’m thinking we had all these plans. We had both decided very early on that once we got into our 60s, we were going to retire early, because we were in a position where we could take our pensions and then enjoy life together and with our family.
My work granted me a sabbatical about six months before Karen passed. I was really pleased that I was able to get that time off work. That gave us some seriously good quality time together, and with our children. I was able to look after Karen and we were able to go places like the garden centre or just down to the seafront, because for most of the time Karen was still fine. It was lovely just to get up in the morning, have a bit of breakfast together and do whatever.
We took another family break, but she said she didn’t feel very well. She was on steroids, and we thought they were affecting her, but it turned out she had a brain tumour.
She had to have radiotherapy on top of the chemo, which was just soul-destroying for her. Absolutely horrible. But outside the treatment, we were still able to do things, sit in the garden, have a cup of tea and just chat.
It was a very tough time, but we had massive support from the hospital and various other support agencies. People were always looking out for us. You go into hospital for a meeting or an X-ray, you might be in there for 10 minutes for the X-ray, but you’d be in the hospital for two hours while people sat you down, had a chat, had a coffee with you, made sure everything was OK and answered your questions.
Chemotherapy was a real eye-opener. I just thought it’d be this one single little room, one chair. I wouldn’t be allowed in. But it wasn’t. It was a big day room, and you have probably about a dozen people, they’re all having chemo at the same time. It’s a chance to talk to other people. You find out what they’re going through and how they cope with certain things and what they do daily, and that really helped as time progressed.
There was a lady who talked to Karen about wigs because Karen’s hair had started to fall out. She mentioned that there was a specialist hairdresser who deals in wigs for patients with, and it turned out they were just a few miles from where we lived. We visited her and she fitted the wig Karen had chosen, then cut and styled it.
Karen was able to literally get her hair back to how it used to be, with a wig, which was phenomenal! The photograph we had on Karen’s coffin was taken when she had just had a wig fitted. We’re sitting in the garden. I took a picture of her, and it looks just like her from years gone by.
Karen always said she didn’t want to go into a home or a hospice. She was adamant about that. I don’t think anybody could have dragged her to a hospice, and she passed away eventually in her own home, with her family present. It was what she wanted.
I hope I looked after Karen the best I could, but I struggled with it. So many times now, I think “how did I act? What did Karen see me doing?” And I think I didn’t cope with it as well as I could have done. Sometimes that really beats me up. There were times when I don’t think I understood the full scale of the illness, and I wish I’d known more about her cancer so I could just talk to her about it in a bit more detail.
My message to other men supporting a partner with breast cancer is to talk to somebody, don’t be afraid to ask for help for yourself. I think my biggest regret, which still upsets me now, is that I didn’t. I think I just let it all happen, and I didn’t fully understand what was going on and what effect that might have on Karen and what effect it might have on me and our children.
Sometimes men don’t want to show their emotions. Show it. Cry out loud. Cry to people you know. I cried a lot, but I cried very privately. I didn’t show it to anybody at all. The only time I cried in front of the children was I think couple of days after Karen’s funeral. Something happened in the house, and I just burst into tears.
If you ask, people will help you. I think it’s important, and if you can just take a deep breath, stand back and go “right, I need to really understand what is going on.” It will help you during and sometimes afterwards.
Now, if I had to go through it again, and I hope I never have to, I’ll pick up the phone to someone on a regular basis and say, “help, can you just come and talk to me, please?” It’s always difficult to talk to close friends when they’re not quite sure what to say. I should have spoken to people who could have advised me and talked to me about me. I wish I had because that would have helped me, but it would have helped Karen a lot more as well. I’d have been in a better position to talk to and help Karen, probably a slightly different way, and I wasn’t good at that.
Two years after she passed away, I got back into running after a 40-year gap and ran my first 10k race in September 2019. It was the mental and physical boost I needed, and I ran the race with my wife’s name printed on my top. Karen never saw me run, and I know she would be proud of my achievements.
In 2024, I took on both the London Marathon to support Against Breast Cancer, as well as the Breast Walk Ever and supporting the ‘Don’t Forget the Men’ campaign.
I wanted to do something in honour of my wife, and the London Marathon was the perfect opportunity to do this and raise funds to help other people who are dealing with cancer in their lives and help find a cure for this disease.