My story is about John Wright

This event took place from 09 Aug 1988 to 24 Feb 2012

The Discovery

My husband developed Pancreatitis in September 2010, which was when I feel his sickness started but his official diagnosis came in December 2010 when he started to turn yellow and felt very ill. He went to the doctors and they did a CT scan and found a blockage on his bile duct. He went in to have a stent put in on 21st December 2010, which was when we got the diagnosis. Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer with secondary on his liver. 3 days before his 50th Birthday.

This is My Story

Our story was my husbands cancer was detected in the very late stage of his illness, so when we went to the Oncologist at the beginning of January 2011 he had 3 treatment options available to him, but we was also told his was terminal at that appointment, I wanted to know a timeframe but my husband didn’t so we didn’t ask anymore.

He started his first treatment a week later and things were starting to look positive after a few months, his cancer markers were coming down and then they started to increase again, which was when the first treatment stopped working and we went onto the second one a couple of weeks later, that one lasted a couple of months as well until we went onto the 3rd treatment option which was successful for Breast Cancer but only trialed on Pancreatic Cancer.

We thought we was going to loose him in July 2011 because he became so ill but he had such a fighting spirit that he kept fighting until his death in February 2012.

I became his carer, nurse, wife all at the same time but I wouldn’t have done it any differently.

We were so blessed because we actually had 14 months with him through this illness. He died with just me beside him, which I knew was exactly how he wanted it to be. We have 2 beautiful children together so he still lives on through them.

Found out after he passed away they would have given him 3 to 6 months to live. So was so grateful we got as long as we did have him here with us.

The Impact of Time

We had a love story for 24 years, we have 2 beautiful children and now have a beautiful granddaughter who was born last year. We made so many beautiful memories together that I will always cherish and remember. Always take photos of everything because one day that might be all you have is your memories.

Our daughter married and had the exact same venue we celebrated our wedding at 20 years earlier, which was a beautiful tribute to his memory.

We all still miss him everyday and I am writing my story about our lives together hopefully to help other people cope with grief, when it is published.

I also donate 10% of my profit from my business to Garvan Institute for Pancreatic Cancer Research.