[Sound of television in background]
Ciaran: My name is Ciarán Devane and I'm chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support.
Katy and I met at a work conference. I was working as a consultant
and she worked for a pharmaceutical company. I was talking, she came up to me afterwards
and we ended up going out for a drink at a pub called the Leather Bottle in Hampshire.
So she was quite bubbly and confident and interested
and, stereotyping hugely, as many red-heads, wasn't going to suffer fools
and would pick you up on anything that she thought wasn't sensible and wasn't right.
So she knew her own mind. We got married in September, we were both
in our thirties and Katy was diagnosed in the January just
after that so three and a bit months after we got married
and the operation was a few weeks after that again.
So after the diagnosis, once we were through that disorientation
it's fair to say we were angry because we were young, we had careers and jobs, we
were affluent. The world was our oyster, planning on having
kids and because of the pelvic radiotherapy of
course that meant that Katy couldn't have kids
and all that disappointment was there and it took a while to come to terms with that.
It was probably eighteen months or so before we would both say actually we were at ease
with the situation. Katy was ill for five years in all before
she died and for the last three we knew it was terminal
Katy was going to die of her cancer. It was important I think that we decided to
live life and have the cancer fit in with it
rather than living life around the cancer and I think that was a big decision for us.
We would, for example, go off and stay in a nice hotel which normally we would never
dream of spending the money on. Or do a trip to France. And we went back to
the west of Ireland a lot, which was a place we both really liked, that
we'd been to frequently. And make the most of the time, and just enjoy
the day, whatever the day brought. Watching the birds at the bird feeder in the
garden while the rest of the world was slaving away at work.
It's hard to say what turned around our feelings. I think it was time. I think it was accepting
this was only going to go one way and not trying to fight it,
and really making a decision to say actually we are going to do the best we can with this.
Katy had difficulty walking. For example, went from being able to walk up the stairs,
to walking up the stairs holding the banister, to holding the banister but also another one
that the nurse had put in, to having to go up backwards, to having to
be carried up. I remember when the district nurse at one
point suggested putting this extra banister on the stairs
and saying 'What's that needed for?' But by the time it was installed it was a
godsend and it was about helping Katy get up the stairs
independently, using the two banisters. And then there was a hospital bed, which had
an air mattress to prevent bed sores so everything you would imagine in and around
a hospital bed was moved into the bedroom initially
and then to the living room. My role, I guess, as a carer was sometimes
helping Katy walking, dressing, getting into the wheelchair.
Obviously you end up doing all the driving and all the household chores as well.
So you know, you have a full-time job. And then it gets into the nursing side, it's
the bandages, sorting out the catheter, and so on.
So you end up in many, many roles as a carer, all of which you have to try to do as best
you can. It's a huge learning curve. I'm an engineer
fundamentally. What do I know about nursing and care and
medicine? You do end up having to learn a lot. You're
having this thrown upon you. You didn't ask for it. And you try and learn,
whether it's getting the advice from people you know, or from the district nurse,
or hoping you're doing your best. As Katy got more ill, the district nurse was
coming twice, three times a day, the GP was around regularly. The hospice doctor
and the hospice nurse came fairly frequently, and we got quite a bit of support from Macmillan.
There is a Macmillan centre at the hospital in Guildford, the Beacon.
And we were fortunate in that way. The district nurse was, in particular, and
everybody around her, was very good at taking one small worry away,
even before you knew you were just about to have that worry.
I think that was hugely valuable. Macmillan was very helpful with Katy's mother,
to Katy's mother, who unsurprisingly was very distressed by
the fact that her daughter was dying. I also knew when it was in the last few days,
and in some ways that is the most difficult, of course, and you would expect it to be.
Katy was hanging on. And it got to the stage where one of the nurses
said 'Ciarán, you have to give her permission to go',
which was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
I was with Katy when she died, which was early in the morning,
and the support continued frankly, the medical director of the hospice was around.
Things, obviously, were very different after Katy died.
While Katy was ill, as a carer you're the person who tries to be steady, holding things
together, while around you all these crises of everything
are happening. For me, at least, it was afterwards that I
collapsed in a heap in the corner, having been holding it all together, doing
the project management, trying to be the steady person with all this
stuff going on around. That was the time I needed to hold myself
together and the support from family and friends. It is different for everyone. In my case it
was taking a lot of time, other people describe it as a bit like post-traumatic
stress. But what's in common with all of that is after
a bereavement the carer needs support as well. I think having a personal experience of cancer
has been very helpful to me in my role in Macmillan
because I hope it means I will never forget what we're about.
What I mustn't do is imagine that the one experience we had is the experience of everyone.
And I hope I don't make that mistake. I think something as important as Katy, marriage,
et cetera, and of course Katy's death, doesn't go away.
It's not far beneath the surface, it's never far beneath the surface, of course.
And nor should it be because otherwise it wouldn't have been as valuable and real as
it was. But life does move on, has moved on. And people do bounce back.
[Announcer] For information, help, or if you just want to chat,
call the Macmillan Support Line on 0808 808 00 00 or visit macmillan.org.uk