After a year long battle against CUP secondary liver cancer my wife’s hard fought and brave battle has finally been lost. Her fight has been an inspiration to many people as she did not give in to the cancer and was determined to live as normal a life as possible. We did do many things over the year which has given us many memories to add to those we already had and she will remain in our hearts and minds for the rest of our lives.
I do know that Julie and I have spent a lot of time over the last year trying to explain Cancer Unknown Primary to people and how the not knowing make treatment harder to define. Most people can not believe that they can not find the primary and have taken time to try and understand to the problem. We did have a second opinion by the royal marsden and they did further testing on the biopsy using a new method and did give us a high probability of the primary which did help steer the treatment.
As we did not want flowers at the farewell many of our friends and family have chosen to make donation to the CUP foundation (I set up a just giving page linked to the CUP Pages) to try and help fund the research which is a credit to how my wife highlighted the problems.
I also have to thanks everyone on this forum and the CUP foundation site for all the support and information provided as it has been a godsend to find others that know about the issue around CUP which helped me gain a better understanding of the problems we encountered.
After the services at the church and crematorium we had afternoon tea (for 200+ that attended the farewell) as my wife had enjoyed many of these over the last year with her friends and family. During the tea my Nephew sang a song that meant a lot to me and said everything I felt and wanted to say. It is a modified version of Full of You by Rick Astley (he was topping the charts when we met 25 years ago) and I would like to share this with you all. I am going to try and see if we can get permission to use this to raise further funds for the much needed research and will let you know how I get on with this.
Link to song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QN6U_2CTJs&list=FLDI2be2OZ-LO8F9lcaVs7JA&index=1&feature=plpp_video
This is an awful time but I am determined to do everything I can to support others that are suffering as we have and use Julies fighting spirit as my inspiration.
David Knapp
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Dear David
Your story made me reach for my ever-present tissues; again. One of the troubles with loving someone so much is that they become part of you, and when they are no longer there – part of you goes with them, the pain is emotional, physical and indescribable.
I live in Southern Catalonia, last Christmas day my wife and I were messing about on the beach with our silly dog. Sandra was beautiful and as bright as a button. A while later she developed pains in her back which progressively got worse and she was admitted to hospital with, as they thought, severe sciatica. The medical services here are superb, she had masses of scans and things but to no avail – they couldn’t find the source of the problem. In Spain it is usual to stay with the patient 24/7 if you wish, I did. On the 28th of March last Sandra died in my arms. We had been together and, for the majority of the time, very much in love, for fifty seven years. You’ll no doubt get all sorts of advice from all sorts of folks. They’ll range from “I’m so sorry I don’t know what to say” which is easy to deal with; but you’ll also get the well-meaning sorrowful “Oh you poor dear….” That’s harder….
My granddaughter is arranging a run in aid of the CUP foundation, the link is below.
http://www.justgiving.com/SarahHawley81
The ‘Cruse’ help web site is not at all bad and not as creepy as some similar American sites
If you ever need to contact anyone who knows exactly what the numb-trauma you feel is like. Please feel free to mail me at scanna@spansurf.com
With my sincere regards
Peter
I’m so sorry to hear your news David.This will be a very tough time for you, I know.
It is very good of you to support our work for the benefit of others in Julie’s memory. We use any money raised for us extremely carefully knowing how important it is to honour the memory of the person who has died; and we remain committed to working effectively to help “make the unknown, known”.
John
Dear David
I am so sorry to hear of your loss, I lost my brother in December of last year to CUP and also found this site and the members both a godsend and an inspiration.
Like many people neither Paul or I had heard of CUP before he was diagnosed, so this website proved invaluable to me in my quest for information (well truthfully in my search of a cure) hopefully with the help of this site and research this one day will happen.
Take care David my thoughts are with you and your family
Please give yourself time to grieve
Tanya xx
So sorry to hear your news. Not knowing your wife there is not much I can say that isn’t a cliche. But I do send you warm wishes as you come to terms with the huge Julie shaped hole in your life. I think it is amazing that you are doing something good for other CUP patients, like me, in her memory. Thank you.
Kate xx