Totally raw and emotional - Hollie shares her heart after losing her husband to a brain tumour only 6 days before.
Warning - this episode will make you cry - you will need tissues
Hollie Elliott is an incredible graphic designer and the artistic talent that created all the cartoons for this new podcast.
But over the past year, she has been dealing with the hardest situation ever.
Hollie shares the events of the past year in complete honesty.
There are no words to describe what Hollie has been through and this episode might be a hard listen.
Hollie is at the start of a new path and I've invited her to come back and tell me how she navigates her profound loss over the next months.
You can connect with Hollie:
The charities that helped George and Hollie are:
Marie Curie Hospice, Newcastle
[You can read a full transcript of this episode here]
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Stacey, The Modern Storyteller, is a storytelling expert and host of The Life Chapters Podcast and The P.S. Club Storytelling Membership.
Passionate that every life story deserves to be heard, she teaches female entrepreneurs in the first few years of business where to find their life stories and how to craft them powerfully, alongside practical and technical support.
Connect with Stacey:
Join The #YourStoryYourWay Facebook Group
Stacey:
Welcome to the Life Chapters podcast, real women, real stories. Hi, I'm Stacey and I am super passionate about showing everyday women like you, that they really do have a story to share. In my opinion, everyone deserves to be heard. And on this podcast, you will get to meet some pretty fabulous women who have amazing stories to tell. Some of the stories you hear might trigger you, but they're all spoken by the women who live them. Some of them will make you smile. Some of them might make you cry.
Stacey:
Welcome back to the Life Chapters podcast. You have listened to me, tell you about the morning my husband died and I'm talking with a lady called Hollie this morning and she has just lost her husband too. Hollie is my graphic designer. The fabulous cartoons for the Life Chapter podcast have all come out of Hollie's head, but she's been going through her own tragedy in the last 11 months or so. And I asked if she would be happy to share her story with you all, and she's here today because she wants to, but I warn you now ladies, if you're listening, this might hurt because it's very raw.
Stacey:
George died on Sunday, we're recording on Friday. So I'm going to hand over to Hollie and say, thank you for letting me have this chat with you today, but I want to pass over to you and can you tell the people listening today where does your story start?
Hollie:
Well, firstly, thank you so much for having me. I really do appreciate you asking me to be here and to share my story. So I suppose my story starts from when I was 20, actually. So when I was 20 years old, I fell in love with who I thought was going to be the man of my future for the rest of my life. And I soon realized very quickly within that marriage that he was not who I thought he was.
Hollie:
And it turns out that he was a narcissist and I had to very quickly learn how to adapt my behaviour in order to suit any given day or situation or his mood in order to blend in with it all and be able to cope with the narcissistic behaviour that was being shown towards me. I was in that marriage for six years and it was a very difficult marriage.
Hollie:
It was nice to begin with, but the signs started to show and I started to feel as though things weren't quite right. And then I realized that I started to lose myself quite a lot within that marriage. So a lot of the time I was apologizing quite a lot. Every single day I was made to feel guilty, every single day I can't remember how many times I said, I'm sorry, but it was a lot.
Hollie:
And it triggers me now those words I've had to learn to not say I'm sorry, because of their triggering effects of them. I had clothes bought for me to match the style of his fashion style, tea had to be made on time every single night yet I was never told what time he was coming in for tea to be made for. So that always caused arguments and things like that.
Hollie:
And in the end it was a really unhappy marriage. So I was 26 when I decided to start the divorce proceedings. I had tried two years earlier, but he pulled me back in, in such a way that I just couldn't escape that marriage whatsoever. For probably the last two, three years of that marriage I felt like I was a single person in that marriage because I'd also been alienated from my friends by that husband.
Hollie:
And I completely lost myself within that marriage. I lost my identity. I lost who I was as a person and it did massively affect me. It affected my confidence levels and everything like that. So I eventually woke up to the behaviour and what was happening and decided to start the divorce proceedings. So while I was starting to go through the divorce proceedings, obviously it's a really tough thing to have to deal with.
Hollie:
And because of the narcissistic behaviour, I also then experienced harassment via telephones, via in person, things being sent to me. It was a really difficult period of my life. And it was a really difficult year to be honest as well because in that year, I was trying to get the divorce. My granddad passed away four months later, and then I was made redundant eight months into the year as well.
Hollie:
So it was a very difficult year, but what I really wanted for myself that year was to find myself again as a person, because you completely disappear within that kind of a marriage. And it's really difficult to find yourself again. And I did eventually it took a long time, but during that time I wasn't looking for any kind of relationship whatsoever. I just wanted to be me. I wanted to find myself again and I wanted to be me.
Hollie:
And there was one day where I was having a really tough day. I remember I was in the flat that I had been renting with my ex-husband. There was no gas, there was no electricity, it was absolutely freezing cold. And I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the oven clean to try and get the deposit back on the flap because we were renting.
Hollie:
And I remember my ex-husband tried to ring me and I wouldn't accept any of his calls. So I got three voice messages that evening, one was telling me how much he loved me. The second one was telling me that he was going to make my life a living nightmare and make the divorce as difficult as possible. And the third one was telling me that he was sorry that he loved me and he wanted me back.
Hollie:
So that was just within three voice messages. That was just the smallest little snippet of what a narcissist can do to you in terms of behaviour and messing with your head. And I remember putting a post out on Facebook where I pretty much swore, which is very much unlike me. I do swear in person when I'm passionate. And I do have a bit of a foul mouth at times, which a lot of people are surprised at because of my accent, but I put a post out on Facebook I swore and then this message appeared in my inbox and it was from a man called George.
Hollie:
So I knew of George. We knew of each other from BNI networking previously. I also knew of George because he was a DJ. He created the most amazing remixes. He had a Facebook group, so he used to download his remixes and I loved them. And he got in touch with me saying, "I've noticed that you're having a bit of a tough time exs will always cause you bother, but just know that there's support out there for you if you need it. And if you ever want to have a chat, let me know."
Hollie:
And it was probably one of the most genuine messages I've ever had for support. Didn't really think anything of it, just thought it was really nice message was not expecting it whatsoever. So I replied, we got chatting and then George gave me his mobile number. So we got chatting again. Again, I wasn't expecting anything whatsoever.
Hollie:
To me I was having a whole year to myself. And at the time I was dog sitting for a friend of mine. So she had had experience of what I was going through in terms of the divorce. And she had a dog and she would go on holiday. And what she would say to me is, "Why don't you come dog sit my dog and live in the house at the same time while I'm on holiday and you'll get some space to yourself," because I'd ended up moving in with my sister and her boyfriend at the time.
Hollie:
So it was a little bit of respite really, for me, it was a little bit of peaceful alone time where I could sit with myself and just be. So when me and George started chatting, he found out that I was dog sitting and I was telling him whereabouts the house was. And it actually was quite close by to where he grew up as a young boy.
Hollie:
And one day after chatting even more, he suggested that we meet up for a dog walk. So I met up with him. I had the dog that I was dog sitting, which was the most placid, gorgeous dog you've ever met. Very polite and the only way I could describe it was she pranced when she walked, she was just absolutely beautiful. She was a gorgeous dog, very reserved and gorgeous.
Hollie:
And then George had his dog, which was Lionel, the cocker spaniel. He was one and a half years old, the most craziest dog I've ever seen in my entire life. And he let the dog off the lead and I just watched Lionel run up the highest of Hills and mountains and then run back down without the care in the world. And my first instant thought was his dog is crazy. Like his dog is mad.
Hollie:
So we went for a gorgeous dog walk, had a chat afterwards and then went our separate ways, but still kept in touch. And then he invited me round to his house to spend some time with him in his house. So we started doing that and that was kind of it. We just naturally got together, but on paper I was still married. So it was a very odd sensation. But to me, that marriage had ended way, way before it actually had.
Hollie:
So my sort of the first eight months of that year on paper, I was still married, but I was together with George. And George gave me so many gifts. He taught me who, what a true gentleman was. So I'd never been treated in such a nice way before. I'd never experienced kind of a man doing nice things for you before. Even for me, it was, he would go into the kitchen, take my glass with him and top it up with water and bring it back for me without me even asking.
Hollie:
And I remember saying to him, one evening, I said, "Oh, you didn't need to do that, I could have done that." And he said, "Well, why wouldn't I do it for you? You needed more water." So I said, "Thank you." And he said, "Oh, you don't need to thank me." And I said, "No, really I do." And then he said, "But it's not something you thank a person for."
Hollie:
And I remember saying, "Yeah, but to me, it's huge." I said, "Because I have not had a man top up my drink for me before." I never... And it was just the simplest of little things that made such a big difference. And then eight and a bit years later, fast-forwarding to December last year, George started having headaches and we didn't know what the headaches were.
Hollie:
George had MS. So we first got in contact with his MS team at the local hospital and we asked them if it was related to his MS. And they said, "No, get in touch with the GP." So the headaches were really quite bad. So I got in touch with the GP for George and got him a telephone appointment. This was, we were in a local lockdown as well in the Northeast. And got him a telephone appointment and they asked for him to go in because they wanted to run bloods.
Hollie:
So I took him in to his appointment. I watched him walk in and obviously I had to sit in the car because of us being in a local lockdown. He came out an hour later and I was sitting in the car thinking, "Why have you been in there for so long? Normally doctor's appointments are 10 minutes. What's going on? He's been there for an hour."
Hollie:
And I remember him texting me saying, "Oh, I've got a prescription. I'm just going in the pharmacy to get that now. Sorry, it was so long I got chatting." Which just to me was typical George, because George is, was so good at chatting to people, getting to know people, having banter. That's what we call it up here in the Northeast. So we got back in the car and he showed me the medication that he'd been given. And it was migraine medication.
Hollie:
I get migraines. I'd already asked George about his headaches. They did not sound like migraines to me. I knew something was wrong. And I really felt like he'd just been fogged off with some medication give this ago, it might help. So a week or so later, the headaches were still there, but getting even worse. So I made another doctor's appointment for George, that doctor said, go get an eye test. So then we booked George an eye test.
Hollie:
I began to realize that because the headaches were that bad. And I was watching how he was conducting himself and holding himself as a person that it wasn't a good idea for him to be driving. So I drove him to the optician's appointment. He had his eye test got back in the car and he said, "Oh, they're going to send a report to the doctors. It turns out my peripheral vision has disappeared."
Hollie:
So we thought, oh, that's not good. That's a bit strange. What's going on there? And then again, the headaches were really quite bad. So there was one day where the headaches were that bad. I said to George, I'm either going to take you to a walk-in center or 111. But again, because we were in lockdown because of COVID and because of George's MS. The minimal risk was to ring 111. So we did that.
Hollie:
And they, the first question they asked was, are you not happy with the doctors? And we thought, well, the migraine medication that George had been given didn't work had actually made him sick. Then, his peripheral vision had gone. We didn't know why. So, no, we weren't really too happy with what was happening. We needed answers. So they prescribed painkillers and this forehead rope that put you put on your head for headaches.
Hollie:
So we went and picked that up from the pharmacy didn't help. And then one Monday, George, his headache was so bad. He was in bed all day. And I thought to myself, this isn't right, this isn't a way to live. You shouldn't have to suffer like this. So I rang the doctors and made an appointment for him. They asked to see him, no, we had a telephone appointment.
Hollie:
We asked about whether they'd receive the report from the opticians. And they said they needed a second opinion from another doctor, but they thought it was close to headaches. So they said, wait, two weeks. See if the headaches go away. If they don't ring us. So after a week on the Monday, George was so ill with this headache that he was in bed all day.
Hollie:
And I just thought this isn't on that something's not right. This is not close to head. So we rang the doctors the next day made an appointment, took George there. Again, I watched him walk in, but he looked like he was floating rather than walking when he walked into the GP. And then he came out, got in the car, and he said, "We need to go to the hospital. They've referred me to the ambulatory unit at the hospital."
Hollie:
So I drove him straight there because of COVID I wasn't allowed to go in. So I dropped him off. I came back home and I sat and waited. And I said, when I dropped him off, "Just tell me when you're ready for me to pick you up and I'll come pick you up." So I got a message from him saying, "I'm done here, will he come pick me up?"
Hollie:
Turns out he wasn't done. He needed a CT scan. So I had to wait a little bit longer. Then he told me he was finished. So I went and picked him up. Couldn't find each other because the headache was that bad, George had lost his sense of direction and things like that. So actually lost him in the middle of Newcastle. So trying to find each other, I've got the car he's on foot. That was quite interesting.
Hollie:
So we eventually found each other and I got him home and because of his MS, and because of the headache and because of having to go to two places in one day, he was really tired. So he went to bed, he needed to sleep. Then all of a sudden, I got a call on my phone when I was down in the kitchen. And it was from the doctors saying, "Hollie, the doctor from the hospital has tried to in touch with George there's no answer."
Hollie:
And I said, "Oh, it's because he's sleeping. He's really tired." So the doctor said, "Can the doctor from the hospital ring you because it's urgent that he speaks to you." So I said, "Yes, okay." My heart started pounding in my chest. I thought something's not right here, got the phone call from the doctor at the hospital. And he said, "How soon can you come in?"
Hollie:
I said, "Well, George's fast asleep right now. Well, I can wake him up and I can come in about 30 minutes." And then the doctor said, "Okay, the sooner you can get here, the better George wasn't meant to leave the hospital. He was meant to stay." And then he said, "When you come in, I think it's a good idea that you come in with him."
Hollie:
So I instantly started crying off the call because to me it was something bad. It was obvious that it was something bad. So I had to kind of pull myself together, wake George up, get him into the car, without him seeing that I was crying, get him to the hospital. And then we managed to get in and we were sat down in a room.
Hollie:
And then the doctor came in with a surgeon. They did a few tests with George and it brought up his CT scan on the computer screen. And they told us that he had a mass on his brain that was likely a brain tumour. And this was three days before Christmas. So they admitted him that night. So started him on a really strong course of steroids. And I was able to sit with him in the ward, even though it was again, COVID, it wasn't really allowed as such, but they sort of said, "This isn't the time to separate people when you've just been told, like you've got a brain tumour."
Hollie:
And then I was only allowed to stay for a little while. And I remember walking up with the hospital, trying to keep it together. And as soon as the doors opened and I started walking back to the car, I just started sobbing because your whole world stops because when you're in that room and you're told that the man that you love has a brain tumour, the only thing that matters is him and your life together.
Hollie:
So it kind of time stops still, even though it does carry on, it's like the hands on the clock still tick and still move forward but for you, time has stopped to still completely. So because of COVID, the visiting restrictions were really strict for visiting the hospital, but I pretty much rang the next day and managed to get a visit. And I got in and I just wasn't sure whether George would be home for Christmas, but managed to get in and see him.
Hollie:
And I was told that he was coming home. And while I was there waiting for him to be discharged, George's MS consultant came in and had a chat with us, which was really nice because we hadn't really been told anything else. So he came in and the first thing he said to George was, "What trouble have you got yourself in?" So George was going, "Oh, you know me."
Hollie:
So he got chatting with us. He gave us some really good pieces of information. And then we were told by the nurse that we would have a new dosage and get in touch with us to make an appointment, to speak to him. But after George's, MS consultant had chatted with us, the nurse had came back and actually said, "Oh, an appointment has become available tomorrow with the neurosurgeon," which we thought, "Oh, that's happened quite quickly and all of a sudden," so we think George's MS consultant had a bit of a sway in terms of that.
Hollie:
So I brought George home and then on Christmas Eve, we were back in the hospital, sitting with the neurosurgeon who told us that he needed to operate on George and it was going to be the first week of January. Again, something that we weren't expecting or anything like that. And the whole thing with the brain tumour is you just don't expect that something like this is going to happen to you.
Hollie:
So we had that appointment to found out more about the brain tumour, saw the size of the brain tumour. The surgeon told us about their surgery and things like that. Then on new year's Eve, we had another appointment at the hospital with the anaesthetist to go through all of that ready for the operation. And then the Uk went into a national lockdown. So I was able to drop George off at the hospital the day before his surgery.
Hollie:
So on the 4th of January, I was able to walk him to the ward doors and have an awkward goodbye to each other. We were told in the appointment with a neurosurgeon that George could die on the table. So it was quite an awkward goodbye I have to say, because you just don't know what to do in that situation. You don't know what to say. So the hospital was completely empty because of the national lockdown.
Hollie:
So I walked back to the car pretty much cried in the car, went home and Georgia's surgery was scheduled for the next day at 9:00 o'clock. He messaged me right up until the very last minute he had surgery and all went well. And five days later, I walked into the hospital, collected him and brought him home. And you would not have thought that he'd just had a brain tumour removed from his brain.
Hollie:
You would never have even thought that he'd gone through major surgery. He had a few cognitive issues in terms of he couldn't really read text or write text. So he was more doing phone calls than anything else. And then a couple of weeks later, we had a telephone call with the biopsy results. And we were told that he had cancer and it was grade four. It was a glioblastoma with a brain tumour.
Hollie:
One of the worst ones that you can get. And the next plan of treatment was probably chemotherapy and radiotherapy. So George was referred to another hospital in Newcastle. We're very lucky to have quite a few here. And we had a telephone appointment with the oncologist who made it quite clear that George's MS would cause a complication with the treatment because we were told that radiotherapy he can have the same effects on the brain as MS.
Hollie:
So his MS could actually get worse. But if it meant a case of him being on this earth longer, but with his MS a little bit worse, we were actually okay with that. And we knew that that the right course of action to take. So a couple of weeks later, George started chemo and radiotherapy. So it was six weeks of chemotherapy, every single day in tablet form, and six weeks of radiotherapy, which was every weekday.
Hollie:
And we used an amazing charity called Daft as a Brush to help George get to hospital appointments. George had an MRI soon after that, which is not what they would normally do, but it was done in George's case because we needed to check that his MS wasn't getting any worse from the radiotherapy. Even though having had the radiotherapy, it can skew the results of an MRI, but we still had it and they said, actually, it was looking good.
Hollie:
None of his MS lesions were looking any worse. And then the plan was five-day cycles of chemotherapy every month up until October this year. So he got through two cycles of chemotherapy. It was just tablet form took them in the house. He did really well. He didn't have any sickness or anything like that, or any real side effects from the chemotherapy.
Hollie:
He did lose his hair. He didn't have much to begin with, but, and he said he wasn't bothered about losing his hair, but actually when it came to it and when he started losing his hair, it did actually affect him a little bit because it did upset him because even though you think it's not going to, it did. So after the second cycle of chemotherapy, pre-chemo bloods were done ready for the third cycle. And we got a call the next day from his nurse specialist to say they couldn't do the chemo for the third cycle because George had low platelets, which was actually linked to his MS.
Hollie:
So they wanted to get his platelets back up before they started another cycle. And in this whole time, George had been on a steroid to help with swelling and pain and things like that. And the purpose of the steroids is to reduce swelling in the brain and things like that because he still had headaches. So they kept him on this course of steroids and the steroids then started wreaking havoc with Georgia's body.
Hollie:
And he started experiencing really bad side effects. So he actually started having really bad toilet problems. He started retaining loads of water in his legs. So his legs literally blew up like four times the size that they normally would be. And then things started to go downhill from there. In may, we decided to get married because within the first few years of our marriage, I said to George, I didn't want to get married ever again because of my experience from my first marriage, I absolutely downright refused to get married because I just didn't want to have to go through what I'd went through before.
Hollie:
And it was wasn't that I had trust issues or anything like that with George far from it in fact, it was just a means of protecting myself, but also the thought of getting married again and getting divorced again, didn't sit well with me at all. I'd been put off completely. And then again, going back to getting the first initial diagnosis of having a brain tumour, it kind of changes things and it makes you realize what's important in your life and what isn't.
Hollie:
So we realized that, or I realized that really I should have told George that he pretty much softened me as a person and that I did want to marry him. So on the 28th of May, we got married. It was probably like the most perfect wedding because it, we did it our way. So no white dress, no flowers, no, nothing like that. No photographer.
Hollie:
We did it our way because we like to do things a bit differently. And George always wanted do things differently too. So he joined in on how we did things differently. Yeah, so no flowers. Didn't get my hair done. Didn't get my makeup down. No white dress, got George a nice suit though because he really wanted to go all out with a nice suit. So that was nice. No photographer, nothing like that.
Hollie:
And we got married in my hometown, which was absolutely lovely. And then we just had a small family due after that at my parent's house. And you could tell George was tired on the wedding day sort of afterwards. And when we got to my mom and dad's house, my mom walked George to the sofa and helped him sit down because he really was tired, but he had nice food and obviously, we enjoyed ourselves and it was lovely.
Hollie:
So that was the end of May. And then the chemo obviously was delayed because of low platelets and things like that. So George started getting back pain in June. We didn't know what it was, but he'd had back pain before. And he was also having really bad dizzy spells as well. And we also didn't know why he was having those either. And there was one instance where he was sitting in the conservatory and I'd been working this whole time and I heard a bang downstairs in the kitchen and I went running downstairs and I found George on the kitchen floor and he'd basically be fallen because the dizziness was that bad.
Hollie:
So there were points where his dizziness was so bad. I had to help him walk around the house and get him to sit down. We really, really did not know what the dizziness was. So after that fall, I rang the nurse specialists and they sent out an occupational therapist and a community response team as well. And they came assessed George and we started getting bits of equipment in the house. And George was struggling with his walking a little bit in terms of his back pain.
Hollie:
And by the time we got to July, he started walking with a walking stick because the back pain was quite bad. And then it progressively got worse and worse and we still weren't getting answers in terms of what was causing this with his back. So we had more doctor's appointments and by mid-July, George had completely lost his ability to walk and nobody could tell us why.
Hollie:
So we ended up eventually getting an MRI and we were told that there was a mark on the base of his spine on the MRI. And they weren't sure what it was, but it was connected to his sciatic nerves, which was causing the issues because his legs would shake and controllably without him doing it.
Hollie:
It was the nerves doing it themselves. So we discussed it with the oncologist and she said, if this is a third thing, like you have had such bad luck and I think it was affecting her quite a lot. And she was saying, just to have a met alone is a lot to deal with then to have a glioblastoma brain tumour on top that's a lot to deal with too.
Hollie:
And then to potentially have a third thing there are no words for it really. So there was an option to, for George to have spinal surgery and remove what was there, but without knowing what it really was, they weren't sure whether it was the best idea or not because the risk for that surgery was it could have been benign and the risk was that George would completely lose his ability to walk whatsoever.
Hollie:
Whereas his oncologist was very much about the quality of life the whole time. So we agreed to wait four weeks to then get George, to have another MRI, to monitor it and see what was happening. I started having to care for George a lot more. I was pretty much doing all his personal care for him. I didn't have anybody else helping me with that. It's probably could be up there as one of the most gruelling things I've had to do.
Hollie:
But now when I look back, it probably wasn't actually, and we had a lot of A and E visits because George was in a lot of pain and I remember ringing the new specialists one morning and I just burst into tears on the phone. And that's the first time I'd done that with them this whole year. And the new specialist knew straight away that I was struggling.
Hollie:
So she got some help in for me, which was the district nurse and the palliative care team who started to take over George's pain management. And it was like a breath of fresh air getting their help with the pain management because George really was in a lot of pain. And the whole time I kept thinking, somebody should not have to live in that amount of pain like they shouldn't have to live like that it's not a way to live.
Hollie:
So I ended up taking George to A and E on a Monday morning because he was in extreme amounts of pain and we were sent home with more morphine. And I just didn't feel like we were getting any help or any answers. And I kept thinking, something's wrong. It's getting worse. Why is he got so much pain? And it's really hard to keep saying to people all the time, something isn't right. Something is not right like he's in so much pain, how come he could walk? And then he couldn't like what is going on?
Hollie:
And it kept having lots of telephone appointments and things like this and telephone conversations. I was wondering whether George had a relapse with his MS still weren't getting any answers whatsoever. And then it came to the second MRI for his back. And the appointment that came through was for an MRI in a mobile unit where he had to walk down some stairs. I remember ringing the hospital and saying, can we swap George out for someone else because he can't walk his wheelchair-bound and they cancelled it.
Hollie:
And they sent another MRI appointment through for like a month's time. And at the time when that appointment came through, I had the palliative care nurses in the house and they said, that's not on, this is urgent. And I was going, yes, it is like, I've been trying to say this whole time. Something's not right. So we got an appointment for the next week and it was getting harder and harder for me to get George to the hospital in and out of the car, into the wheelchair. It was really difficult because one of the side effects of steroids is you gain weight.
Hollie:
So he was getting heavy and heavier. I just, I couldn't handle his weight. So one of our friends actually helped me get George to the hospital for that appointment. Got George's close to the MRI room as we could in the wheelchair, managed to get him out of the wheelchair and sit on the trolley, which was then to go into the MRI machine. And George was in so much pain he couldn't lie flat and we didn't know what was wrong, but obviously, something was wrong.
Hollie:
Had given him the pain medication that I could have given him beforehand to try and even help with getting him in there. And it just wasn't possible. And he could only go back so far. And his whole body literally started shaking because he was in that much pain, which to us said, something's not right. It's not right. So we had to abandon the appointment and got George home.
Hollie:
And then that evening, I remember George saying to me, "I don't understand." He said, "I managed to lie down flat for that MRI about five, six weeks ago. Why can't I do it now?" And he also felt really bad because he felt like he'd wasted everybody's time. I was like, "You haven't George. It's not your fault." The next day I got a call from the palliative care nurses asking if what had happened that night. And I told them, and I said, "He is in a lot of pain and he couldn't manage it."
Hollie:
So within 20 minutes, an ambulance had arrived at the house and George was being taken to the hospital to be admitted, to see if they could get on top of his pain management because everybody was really concerned about the fact that he couldn't lie down for the MRI. So I started visiting George at the hospital because of COVID the visiting restrictions. We were limited to one hour a day. That was it. So I got to see George one hour a day.
Hollie:
And then after three weeks, he eventually had the MRI because of his pain management. And then I'd visited George after he'd had the MRI. And he was so over the moon that he'd been able to lie flat for that MRI. To him, it was like a massive, great achievement. I was very proud of him came back home.
Hollie:
And then I got a phone call from the doctor at the hospital. You tell me that it was cancer in the base of his spine. It actually doubled in size since the first MRI, it was all the way up his spine. And it was in the back of his neck. And I was told they couldn't treat him anymore. So no more chemo or anything like that because it was actually going to shorten his life rather than prolong it.
Hollie:
Meanwhile, George was having cognitive issues. He'd been told this news himself in the middle of a bay with four of the men in there. And then he was left on his own. And he thought he was dying that night. So I was actually called into the hospital to console George, because we'd been told the news separately that he was pretty much going to die. It's not quite the way that you think that those things are going to be done, but that's how it was done.
Hollie:
But at least we got to spend some time together that evening. And then it was a case of deciding next steps. So for the first time this year I met George's oncologist in person. And I got to sit down with her away from George because he just wasn't retaining any information whatsoever. And we got chatting a bit more about his MRI and the results and things like that.
Hollie:
And what was an original prognosis of a recurrent of glioblastoma, a brain tumour, like coming back would be 18 months to two years. The prognosis that I got from here that day was three months or less, which isn't really what you expect. So I was told again, no more treatment all that they could do was make him comfortable. Then we had to make the decision of where does George go next? Does he come home or does he go into a hospice?
Hollie:
And I felt like a really bad person because I actually wanted him to go into a hospice because to me, you would get 24/7 care. And that's what George needed in my eyes. And to me, he needed the best care possible. And he wasn't going to get that here at home with care four times a day. To me, it wasn't enough because of his pain and the side effects and everything else going on.
Hollie:
So we managed to get him to Marie Curie Hospice in Newcastle. And he was in there for 10 weeks before he passed away. So he passed away on Sunday. And I think for me, one of the hardest things is to watch cancer eat away at the man you love who you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with. And you've got to watch him every single day. And you've got to watch what cancer does to him.
Hollie:
And it's probably one of the most heartbreaking things a person will ever go through. But you can't say no, you can't step away from it. You can't hide from it. You don't want to accept it. I still don't want to even want to accept it now, but it's probably one of the most cruelest diseases around until, you know, see the pain and the suffering that a person has to go through. It's quite inhumane at times. It's very cruel.
Hollie:
And you think you've got all the time in the world. You don't think that this is going to happen to you. And then it does. And he was only 46. His whole future has been robbed from him and mine too. But George had a purpose in his life. He impacted thousands of people. He never complained. He never pitied himself. He never victimized himself. In 11 months there was only once where he said, "Why me?"
Hollie:
The rest of the time at the hospice, if the nurses walked in and asked him how he was that day, he would say, "I'm living the dream. I'm living my best life," because he was. So even though he was dying, he was still laughing. He was still joking. He was still making other people laugh and smile because that was just a natural talent that he had.
Hollie:
He made everything better and he just didn't let it get to him. And yes, he probably was scared. And he probably was, it was in the back of his mind, but George had always had a positive outlook on life. I noticed that from the very first moment that we got together, he just had such a different outlook on life. He never let his MS define him. He always said, "I'm not going to let it define me and who I am as a person. I'm just going to carry on. I'm going to be positive."
Hollie:
And George had his own story too. His dad died when he was 16. So four days after George's 16th birthday, his dad died. And then when he was 26, his mom died. And as soon as his dad died, George actually became a young carer for his mom. So when I was caring for him in terms of personal care, it really triggered George. And he actually shared things with me about caring for his mum, that he hadn't told a single person.
Hollie:
So like that's 30 years of emotion and thoughts and feelings in a person. And he'd never shared it with a single person before. So I'm very honoured and I'm also are very grateful. And I know that sounds really weird, but I'm actually very grateful to have had the time that I had with George. And I'm grateful that I went on this journey with him, because it meant that even though it was like really hard, really exhausting, really draining and all senses the word I still got time with him. So I still got to talk to him. Still got to see his smile, still made me laugh, still told me that was being stupid. He still told me every day that he loved me, called me his beautiful wife. And it's those things. You never forget.
Stacey:
Hollie, I am sat here with tears streaming down my face and I know you are too. We both are. I feel incredibly privileged that you have shared what has been a really difficult 11 months. You are five days after losing your husband to the cruellest disease and you are here telling others that George was the man he was with a smile on his face, with that positive outlook in life.
Stacey:
I'm honoured to hear what you have to say. I'm so conscious that emotions and anybody listening and yeah, we'll be all crying. Is there anything else you want to say today because you and I are going to chat again because your story continues and the lessons that you are learning and the path that you have yet to travel will be so valuable for others. But what, is there anything else you want to say today?
Hollie:
I would say cherish every single moment that you have with the people that you love, because anything could happen. We know that. Anything could happen if you don't think it's going to happen to you, it might. Life is so short that you can't spend it in anger or sadness or frustration or anything like that. So just cherish every moment.
Hollie:
And one thing that popped into my mind at the start of the year when we, well in December last year, when we got the first news that it was a brain tumour was I realized that none of it mattered if that makes sense. So George would do little things that would frustrate me in the house. Like not put things in the bin, leave his drawers open that kind of thing.
Hollie:
And I realized, do you know none of that mattered because those things were what made him him. And so we have to be grateful for the people around us and be grateful for every little quality that they have about them. Because once they're gone, they're gone. You're never going to get that back.
Stacey:
It's so true that we, sometimes we don't realize what we have until it's gone. And if there's a lesson for anybody listening, it's to stop and look at what you have today because tomorrow is never promised to any of us, me losing Chris, suddenly you have an 11-month journey to losing George. We don't get promised tomorrow and we have to live in today in the moment now.
Stacey:
Hollie, thank you so much for sharing. Thank you for being honest and open. Thank you for your tears. I feel incredibly privileged to have listened to you today. We will talk again. I'm sure people will want to know how life goes for you. I will pop all your contact details in the show notes. I know you wanted to highlight the charity that had helped you. Can you just remind us where that, what that charity's called and I'll make sure it goes in the show notes as well.
Hollie:
So there's two. So the first one was Daft as a Brush. They're amazing. They're up here in the Northeast, in the UK, they help you get to your hospital appointments. So with us, because it was every day for six weeks, there was no way that I was going to be able to work and take George to hospital appointments because the bills still needed to be paid.
Hollie:
So they very kindly took George to his appointments and they do that for so many other people in the Northeast who don't have the support or don't have anybody to take them. So they're a Godsend. And then Marie Curie Hospice where George was for the last 10 weeks. It's probably one of the most amazing places. The nurses are... There are no words really to describe the nurses. They're absolutely amazing.
Hollie:
They care for you and really want the best for you. So they did everything that they could to give George some happy moments, including I'll share this including a week before he passed away. They had a rave in his room with him, with bubbles, disco lights, glow sticks music because he loved music. So they gave him happiness and joy while he was there.
Stacey:
Incredible, both incredible charities. And if anybody would like to support them, the links will be in the show notes. Please do. Hollie, thank you once again. Thank you. What a powerful story. If you want more information about my guest or their story, check out the show notes, all the details are there.
Stacey:
I would love to know what you think about this episode. Head over to Instagram at the Life Chapters Pod and tell me what you think. I really would love to know. And if you have a story to share and you want to do it here on the Life Chapters podcast, please get in touch. My door's always open and I would love to give you the platform to share your story.