I had to tell my three-year-old son his mummy wasn’t coming home after she died of bowel cancer at 34
LYING in bed staring at the ceiling, Ian Wilson felt numb.
The same thought was bouncing around inside his head: “How the hell has this happened? How do you tell a three-year-old their mum has died?”
Just hours earlier, his wife Morag, 34, took her last breath – just seven weeks after being diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer.
Now he was faced with telling toddler Jamie that his mummy wasn’t coming home from hospital.
It took the dad-of-one, 34, a few days to prepare himself but he knew it would have to happen before he went back to nursery.
Ian told The Sun Online: “I pulled him into my lap and said, ‘Jamie, Daddy has something very sad to tell you. Mummy has died’.
“I was fully expecting no reaction, or as the books said for him to walk off and clam up. But he burst into tears and kept calling for Mummy.
“I had assumed he would have no idea or concept of what death was. I tried to pull him back to me but he pushed away from me with his legs.
“He then cried ‘I want my Mummy’. ‘I do too darling,’ I said as I burst into tears.”
The couple, who were married for nearly five years, had been trying for a second baby and were about to complete on a house in York when Morag started feeling unwell.
They had been sleeping on a mattress on the floor at Morag’s parents and presumed her bad back was down to that.
But then she started getting stomach pains too and was finding she’d lose her appetite.
In agony
By the end of January this year, it was becoming a daily agony and she finally booked in to see her GP, who carried out an ultrasound.
Morag went with her mum to collect the results and when they got back they asked Ian to come and sit down.
He said: “I felt a stirring of anxiety but batted it away quickly and thought ‘there is no way its anything bad’. I walked into the lounge and Morag was standing by an armchair.
“She looked fine, I asked her ‘Is everything ok?’ She stuck her tongue into her cheek and tightly shook her head.
“She choked out ‘It’s bad, the ultrasound shows metastasis in the liver’.”
The following week she had a CT scan and the diagnosis came back showing a tumour in her lower bowel and growths in a significant number of lymph nodes, as well as tumours in her liver.
Fewer than one in ten people survive bowel cancer if it’s picked up at stage 4, but detected quickly, more than nine in ten patients will live five years or longer.
Early diagnosis is key, which is why The Sun launched the No Time 2 Lose campaign – to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of the disease, to empower everyone to check themselves.
Fighting it
When the couple finally met with Morag’s designated oncologist, Dr Chan, he said that they were going to “fight this as hard as we can”.
They left feeling hopeful after talks of starting chemotherapy.
But Morag started to deteriorate rapidly and her first date for chemo was cancelled after she started suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea.
It was rescheduled for April 18, but when she arrived at hospital her pulse was twice what it should be and tests showed she had an infection so it couldn’t go ahead.
Over the coming days, her condition worsened and her tummy started to swell up.
Ian said: “As I walked into the ward saw Morag I got another painful stab in my stomach.
“She looked awful. Her face was grey, and her eyes were dark and sunken.
“Her tummy was as swollen as when she was pregnant with Jamie.
“The next six hours were simply a complete horror show that has traumatised me deeply.
“An emergency CT scan was ordered. While we were waiting for the results Morag started to throw up bile, a thick greenish liquid.
“The CT results came back saying she had perforated, meaning there was a hole in her bowel somewhere and this was leaking excrement into her tummy, and likely the cause of her infection.
How can I have been married to someone for so long and not see this huge reservoir of strength and bravery?
Ian Wilson
“A surgeon came to say we would need to do surgery and remove the part of her bowel that was perforated.
“He suggested that we do this and put in a stoma, meaning she would have a hole in her tummy that faeces would come out of.
“He offered this as an option, and I felt that this couldn’t be the end because they wouldn’t offer it.”
Ian says Morag didn’t hesitate and said yes, leaving him thinking: “Who is this woman? How can I have been married to someone for so long and not see this huge reservoir of strength and bravery?”
She was taken down for surgery while Ian sat in a waiting room sharing memories with Morag’s mum.
“I cried, we waited, I prayed, I begged,” Ian said.
“A Facebook group called Living with Stage 4 Bowel Cancer was a massive lifeline for me.
“Even at 1am, total strangers who all had been touched by this disease were replying and messaging me and giving me strength.”
Eventually her surgeon came to see them and explained that the op had gone “as well as it could have”.
Ian said: “He said that he had removed half of her bowel, cleaned up a lot of the leakage and taken out the majority of the primary tumour.
“He described it as an ‘ugly’ tumour, which was wrapped around her pancreas and small intestine.
“He complimented Morag on her mental strength and bravery and seemed honestly humbled by his patient. I could have kissed him, I wanted to hug and cry with him.”
Deteriorating
Over the next two days Morag’s condition continued to improve and a few days later she was stable enough to be transferred from intensive care to a normal ward.
But a CT scan a couple of days later revealed that she had four major systems that were failing and bowel was yet to “wake-up” from the surgery.
Her heart was beating twice as fast as it should, her liver was starting to fail from the growth of metastases and her lungs showed a build-up of fluid.
Morag was offered three options – do nothing, manage the symptoms or what the doctor branded “full escalation”, which involved doing everything they could to keep her alive.
They decided to go for the latter and she started to show improvements.
I knew in my heart my amazing wife was going to die
Ian Wilson
Her jaundice cleared and her pulse improved, but her mental state was deteriorating and she was in constant discomfort.
Morag’s best friends made the journey from London to see her and on one of the days, Ian took them out to their favourite breakfast spot.
But it was while they were there that he got a devastating text from Morag’s dad telling him he was needed at the hospital for a meeting with the palliative care team.
Ian said: “Her friends tried to rally me but I knew in my heart my amazing wife was going to die.
“When I got to the hospital, her dad sat me down and said that the doctor had seen Morag that morning and that ‘we have lost this fight’.
“I broke down again. I tried to take deep breaths to break through the racking sobs and anguish I was feeling.
“I walked down the hallway jelly-legged and got to Morag’s bed side. She made eye contact with me and I bent over her.
“I tried to clasp her hand to me but all the wires and lines made this difficult.
“I told her, “my darling wife, I’m so sorry this has happened to us. I need you to know, Jamie and I will be OK.
“‘I promise you I will get through this and make sure Jamie does as well. But you have to know, you are taking the biggest part of my heart with you’.
“She closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep.”
Jamie was then brought into see her but Ian said his son was confused by his surroundings.
He said: “There is one crystalline image I have of Morag waking up and seeing Jamie, and her face lighting up as it always did when she looked at him.
“He smiled at her and they chatted for a bit about nothing. Then Morag started to get uncomfortable and confused and Jamie was whipped out of the room.”
The following day, the family surrounding her bedside, Morag started to slip away.
Ian said: “I was trying to get some sleep in the waiting room and just as I was nodding off Morag’s mum came in and said ‘Ian, it’s time’.
“I walked down the hallway in a dream and when I got to her I held her hand.
“Morag’s chest started to have tiny convulsions, like a fish out of water, and then she went still.
“The nurse came over and checked her pulse and gave us a sad nod. This is the single most traumatic thing I’ve ever seen.”
Ian was given some time alone with his wife before they packed up her things and left.
He said: “I was completely shell shocked. My wife was dead seven weeks after being diagnosed with cancer.”
The 6 ways you can prevent bowel cancer
IT’S the second deadliest cancer in the UK but it can be prevented.
A few simple lifestyle changes can help stop bowel cancer striking in the first place.
They are:
- Get screened – if you are eligible, don’t delay, book your screening test as soon as you get the letter
- Stop smoking – around 8 per cent of bowel cancer cases are linked to smoking
- Cut back on the booze – sticking to the recommended 14 units a week, that’s six pints or 10 small glasses of wine, reduces your risk
- Get moving – aim to do 30 minutes of exercise a day
- Eat well – up your fibre intake, it’s vital to keep your bowels moving and there’s evidence to suggest cutting back on red meat helps
- Drugs work – there’s no magic pill, but there is evidence to suggest a daily dose of aspirin lowers the risk of polyps, a precursor to bowel cancer
Since Morag’s death on May 5 this year, Ian has raised more than £25,000 for Bowel Cancer UK, with comedian, Dara O’Brien sharing his fundraiser online.
He’s also started a blog to help other grieving dads and husbands.
Sadly, Morag is one of 2,500 people under the age of 50 who are diagnosed with bowel cancer in the UK every year.
The earlier it’s detected, the better the chance of surviving it.
Dr Lisa Wilde, director of research and external affairs at Bowel Cancer UK, said: “Unfortunately we hear stories like Morag’s every day, where younger people experience significant delays to their diagnosis because of their age.
“Bowel cancer is not just an older person’s disease like many people think. Every year in the UK over 2,500 under-50s are diagnosed with the disease, a 48 per cent increase since 2004.
MORE FROM NO TIME 2 LOSE
“Symptoms of bowel cancer can be common but other health problems can cause similar symptoms, making it difficult for GPs to determine which patients need further tests.
“This leads to unnecessary delays in diagnosis, reducing their chance of survival significantly. The earlier bowel cancer is detected, the greater the chance of surviving.
“Finding quicker, more effective ways to identify and diagnose these patients is crucial to help GPs and other clinicians identify or rule out bowel cancer quickly to give people the very best opportunity for successful treatment.”
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