Jim and his wife, Jan, along with four other couples, took part in St. Michael’s Hospice first Living Well Together session at the Hospice’s Living Well Centre.
Living Well Together is a 7-week programme designed to introduce palliative care and the services at St. Michael’s Hospice. Our aim throughout this programme is to give you an insight into how to manage the impact of your illness, how to adapt to any changes it may bring and ways in which we can support you to remain as independent as possible, so that you can continue to live as well as possible.
Jim and Jan, kindly shared their story and experience with being introduced to St. Michael’s Hospice through the service:
Jan and I have been married for 55 years. We have two children, a daughter and a son, and two beautiful granddaughters. They’ve enhanced our lives.
Throughout our marriage we’ve moved up and down the country, ran pubs, worked different jobs and we both worked in the hospital before retiring. For 10 years I worked in hospital theatres, supporting people before and after surgery. I enjoyed the job so much I worked into my retirement.
We were both aware of St. Michael’s Hospice as the building is just across the road from the hospital, but we had never needed to step through the doors or use the service before being invited to come to the Living Well service.
I’d been going to the doctor for three years with concerns, but I was told it was ‘just my blood pressure’. The pain continued to get worse, and eventually I was referred to have a scan as they thought it could be kidney stones. A couple of weeks later, on Friday 13 November 2019 – days like these make the date stick in your mind – I received a call from the doctor that explained all my scans were clear, but they had found a tumour.
After the tumour was discovered, everything moved quickly, I was seen by several doctors and underwent surgery, in the same hospital that I had spent over a decade working in the surgery. During the surgery they found the tumour had spread in the time it had taken to diagnose. The doctors removed as much as possible but were unable to extract it all due to its position in my body.
When you get a terminal cancer diagnosis it affects your whole life, including your family. I feel there are two ways to take that kind of news, to sit in the corner and cry or get on with it. We have a bit of both some days. We have tears at times but most of the time we keep smiling. So, I must live with it – we as a family are living with it.
I go to the hospital every four weeks for injections, and I had radio therapy to shrink the tumours. Five years later, I’m still going, and I feel as good as possible. My wife and family are such a support to me. My grandchildren are aware of the situation, we made the decision to tell them the truth about my cancer – we explained that the hospital visits was an MOT for their grandad’s body.