Karin and I were a couple for over thirty years – we started going out the first night we met. We have owned three houses, three children and hundreds of cats. I was always into cycling and running and Karin was always into books – over time our interests blended, like a Venn diagram where the circles are moving together.
Oddly, Karin always claimed that after she left school she convinced herself that she wasn’t sporty: bad mistake marrying me then. As she got older her physical vocabulary came back, starting with karate in Canada then progressing to running on the road, followed closely by my favourite hobby; off-road running. We also bought her a nice road bike that she could use to go to work on as well as recreational rides. She was pretty strong; I have a very clear memory of her riding in a duathlon and riding round grinning and laughing the whole way to fourth place in the cycling section.
The last two years have seen us sharing the burden of cancer. Karin was the one who had to endure tests and scans followed by chemo and radio-therapy. She vomited, had seizures, and lost the feeling in her legs. Her headaches lasted months, not hours, and her hair was scorched off her scalp, but she very rarely complained. No, she planned holidays, parties, visits, she identified what she wanted to make the little life she had left as pleasurable as possible. She wrote and published a novel and filled countless books with ideas. She planned and had special moments with our children to provide meaningful complete memories for them. She insisted, insisted, that I buy a titanium bike (a real chore for me). People became very important, to the point at which Karin’s strength was only in evidence when friends or family were around – often when they left she just collapsed into exhausted sleep.
What did I do? Cooking, cleaning, counting the medication out, being company, working, writing this blog, staying in touch with people, and latterly, organising everything. I also went running – Karin told me to. She said it was important I had some ‘me’ time and it would help me unravel my head. And I was her partner. Not as a passive state but active, like two people pressing their foreheads together. We sat and just existed. We went to the supermarket and actually enjoyed it, we talked, drank prosecco together. We sat in bed until far too late in the morning and drank tea made by the Teasmaid. She liked toast in bed, one with marmalade and one with jam or occasionally marmite. I loved it; I could care for her and we would connect deeply.
When I went running I always had to have my phone on me just in case she had a problem. Now when I go out I have to check my reflex and leave the phone at home – no-one will phone me.
Karin’s energy ran out three weeks before she died. She knew how close she was to the end but still spent her time making sure everyone was ok. She still sent me out running, although I was scared to go for very long. I took my running kit to the hospice but never felt confident enough to change and get out, despite being very close to Blaise estate. The staff in the hospice looked after her while I tried to sit and understand the changes that had occurred in us. They recognised the journey both of us were on and provided the care and guidance we needed.
We all get pestered constantly for contributions to this or that charity, but it is only when you need the support of one you really know their value. I knew what hospices did but I didn’t know what that felt like. I had no idea that a nurse would see me sitting on my own and come and chat with me for 30 minutes. I didn’t know that the care extends beyond the death of the patient, or that relatives who live a long way away can access counselling skills from other hospices; this means our children can still be supported even when they are away at university.
Please consider making a donation to the St Peter’s Hospice. I want to give back the care we all received during Karin’s time there so that someone else can have it. Everybody deserves a dignified death.
Click on the link below to go to my fund raising page;
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