Hello

It all started back in 2018. My then boyfriend, Jerry, had a mole removed, at the doctor’s recommendation. The biopsy results didn’t show anything alarming. Then in autumn 2019, he was misdiagnosed with a TMJ (temporomandibular joint) disorder by his dentist. After that, he began to get pain and puffiness in the area. An ultrasound was ordered but, again, didn’t show anything. Then the pandemic hit.

 

We were stuck at home in lockdown, the dentist was shut and the doctors limited how many in-person appointments they did. Meanwhile, Jerry’s pain was getting worse. Over the phone, they advised him to take the maximum paracetamol and ibuprofen each day, so I went to three different shops every weekend to stock up on painkillers, because you could only buy so many at a time. Eventually, many phone calls later, he was given stronger pain medication. But his symptoms just kept getting worse.

 

When he finally saw a dentist, they knew immediately it wasn’t a jaw problem. More scans and a biopsy followed. Then the cancer diagnosis came on Christmas Eve 2020. I had somehow convinced myself that the news couldn’t possibly be anything serious. Jerry seemed less surprised. Actually, he didn’t even want to talk about it. He took a few days before he felt ready to tell his family, because he didn’t want to ruin Christmas. So we spent Christmas together in lockdown, reeling from the news. It was the first and only Christmas Day we spent together, because normally we celebrated separately with our own families.

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Locked in Uncertainty

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To begin with, Jerry was adamant he didn’t want me to give him any extra attention. He said that if I hovered around him, it would make him feel like he was dying. So I kept on working as normal from home, partly because he wanted to keep things as normal as possible, and partly because I feared I might need to take more time off further down the line if his condition got worse. In my head, the worst-case scenario was a timeline of years, not weeks.

 

I suggested we should get married (we were already engaged) but he wanted to wait until he was better so that it could be a celebration of that as well. We deliberately kept the information we received to a minimum: we specifically asked not to be told the prognosis. Since we were in the middle of lockdown, what could we have done differently anyway, even if we’d known how little time we had left? All we could do was bunker down in the flat and hope for the best.

 

For a while, things were weirdly normal. The immunotherapy even caused the lump on his jaw to reduce in size, so for the first time in months he could chew food without pain. He kept up with his gym routine. He cooked delicious meals each night, watched his favourite films and chatted to his friends back home in the Philippines. But I cried each night in the shower. It was the only place he wouldn’t be able to hear me.

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Care without a Prescription

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Almost imperceptibly, I found myself doing more and more for Jerry. Cooking because he struggled to stand for long. Applying steroid cream to his skin. Chasing the pharmacy for refills on his ever-growing list of prescriptions. Still working full-time. Although friends did some errands for us where they could, because of lockdown nobody could come to the flat to help.

 

Jerry became more subdued. He hid from me and his family when he was struggling because he didn’t want to be a burden on me and he didn’t want them to worry. And he was also worried about being sent back to hospital. One day, I had to plead with him to go in. He agreed but only if I’d come with him. I wrapped him up as warm as I could and when we arrived at the hospital, I had to order a wheelchair because he was struggling to walk.

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They kept him in overnight. When I got back to the flat alone, I felt a bizarre sense of relief that I could now finally get on top of things for a few days while the professionals were looking after him. I was able to do a proper clean of the flat for the first time in weeks, make sure he had a clean, fresh bed waiting for him. I remember that I also bought him peppercorn sauce because he told me he was craving it for when he got back.

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But his condition deteriorated rapidly in hospital. He was moved from oncology to a general ward and then to the ICU. I was summoned to visit him and was told his condition was now terminal because the cancer had spread to his lungs despite the immunotherapy. His family were asked to come. We got married in the hospital, just before they arrived. We stayed with him until he died, 48 hours later.​

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