What a Difference a Day Makes: The moment I knew my husband wasn't going to live
Talks Photo: Ryan About John Husband Losing Lorraine Crimmins To Terminal Ray Cancer Her
The 24 hours that made the biggest impact wasn’t the moment my husband’s cancer was diagnosed as terminal. It was a very private moment between John and me about a month before he passed when I really knew he wasn’t going to live.
It all started in May 2019 with a blister on his tongue that didn’t go away. The GP referred him to a maxillofacial surgeon in CUH, a biopsy was done. A week later the result came: cancer. He was 33.
We were sent to the South Infirmary ENT centre. I was numb, John really upset. They did scans. We were there for hours, and back two days later for more. Surgery was scheduled for four weeks later – John had half his tongue and 48 nodes in his neck removed. He had a tracheotomy. When he came around it was so good, such a relief, to see him in the bed.
He got out of hospital after a month in the high-dependency unit. His cancer was stage two – they were confident they’d got rid of it. In the Bon Secours, being fitted for a mask for preventive radiation, he was scanned again – another tumour had started growing in the weeks since surgery.
They said the best course was six weeks of really strong radiation and weekly chemo on top. This was October-December 2019. He was a great patient, he wanted to get better. And when it was over we thought it was time now to heal.
But mid-January the tumour was growing again. He started immunotherapy – it was like feeding the tumour. There was no stopping it. They were honest… they told us it was terminal. I just stayed really quiet. I did hear all the words. I didn’t doubt those words… but I equally felt it was all far away and couldn’t touch me.
My concern was John, his comfort and happiness. I focused on that. I parked every feeling I had to look after my two teenage boys. I’d had them before I met John, but he took them on – they were his kids. His poor mother, his siblings, had to get the news. Telling family something is terminal affects you in ways it’ll take years to process… walking into a house, knowing every wall is going to crash down around them.
It didn’t change John and me as a couple. We got to say all the things, got to be so in love with each other, be friends. Our relationship became really playful, simple jokes we had – ‘John, I know you’re only doing this for attention’ – he used to laugh. It was during Covid, no-one was allowed into us, so we were able to be that way, not treat him as ‘terminal’.
They’d told us he’d have to go on end-of-life care. There came a point when I knew things were after changing massively – he was in pain, the tumour physically damaging his neck, he couldn’t eat or drink and had to have a peg tube fitted.
It was time to bring on Marymount – they’d come out to the house, assist with the pain, they were fantastic. But when you hear ‘Marymount’ - not everyone goes there – I could see ‘terminal’.
We had counsellors and when I’d cry – they’d understand of course – but always they’d bring it back to right now, living in this moment, where he was right beside me and we could touch each other. When things got really shaky, we’d try and bring it back to ‘this moment’.
The most we were away from each other was two nights of a spell he had in Marymount. When you know time is limited, to be separated is horrendous. I’d leave him in Marymount, he’d turn on his TV there, I’d turn on mine at home and we’d watch the same movie, video-calling each other so we could see each other.
About a month before the end, I knew he couldn’t do this much more. I realised I’m really going to lose him – it’s not far away. By now he was sleeping very deeply. One night he was lying beside me, holding my hand, he’d sleep rubbing my wrist – tiny things you take completely for granted.
I was looking at him, sound asleep, rubbing my hand, watching his chest go up and down, and I felt 'I want to remember this'. I videoed him rubbing my hand and breathing and I did it with the conscious thought that it was going to be a memory and that I’d look back at it. I cried and cried, and tried not to wake him, no sound… but I couldn’t stop the tears.
In that last month, he started doing things around the house – checking the fire alarm batteries, getting a fire extinguisher, teaching the boys things to do with the heating, the plumbing, the farm. It was his handover, making sure myself and the boys were looked after, that I wouldn’t be in the deep end about anything. It was so sad, this tidying up of our lives.
I took over John’s role in the farming and in the hotels – I’m CEO of Crimmins Hotel and Leisure. It’s never out of my sight that these businesses are his legacy. I started focusing on the ethos of the company. It’s like a memorial from me to him, that I’m looking after it and the people working there.
I will mourn John forever but he’s still with me, his personality imprinted on me. I still feel like I’m his wife. And I’m grateful for the time we had.
- Lorraine Crimmins is CEO of Crimmins Hotel & Leisure, which comprises The Clybaun Hotel, Galway, as well as Hotel Killarney, The 3 Lakes, and The Innisfallen