Packing away the Christmas decorations in January 2022 was one of the hardest things Mike Freeman ever had to do.
‘I knew thatthe next time I’d see them again life would be very, very different’, the father-of-two from Solihull tells Metro.
Just a few weeks earlier, Mike’s wife Kerry had been told she likely had cancer. Normally fit and well, the yoga teacher had started feeling fatigued, then in November she had found a lump in her abdomen and went to her GP who quickly referred her to specialists.
‘That December was all colonoscopies and tests. Doctors told us to try and have a quiet, relaxed Christmas and that they would see us in January for the full diagnosis,’ Mike, 47, remembers.
‘But Kerry and I were in shock. There was anxiety and worry, and neither of us felt comfortable not being open with the children. Whispering behind closed doors didn’t feel good. I love Christmas, but it was hard to be part of it when you’ve got something going on like that.
‘We tried to remain positive as we didn’t know how serious it would be, and we tried to create a nice Christmas atmosphere, but it was challenging as our families were equally worried.’
As their children Tommy and Chloe – then seven and five – got hyped up about gifts, Santa and advent calendars, Kerry and Mike put on a brave face and gave them the happiest Christmas they could.
But on January 6, 2023, Kerry received the devastating diagnosis of bowel cancer. Mike immediately stopped working so he could take care of his wife and the kids ahead of surgery and treatment in Spring of that year.
While Kerry did start to feel a bit better after some initial chemotherapy, the cancer was aggressive and by Easter she was told that it was incurable.
‘We were told we would probably get six to nine months, which would have taken us up to Christmas’, Mike remembers.
‘Kerry was so strong minded and positive. She always dismissed timelines and was always going to overcome it in some way, shape or form. So we planned for the worst and hoped for the best.’
With doctors experimenting with different treatments, Kerry lived her life; looking after the kids, seeing friends and being as physical as she could be. When she felt well enough she worked to build her yoga business online with the hope of getting back into teaching again. But after an active trip to the Cotswolds that summer, she fell very ill with a life threatening bowel perforation and was rushed to hospital in Birmingham.
What is bowel cancer?
Bowel cancer is a type of cancer found anywhere in the large bowel. The large bowel is part if your digestive system and helps to absorbwater from your food and removes waste from your body.
Changes in your stool, a lump in your tummy, bloating, weight loss and extreme tiredness can all be symptoms of bowel cancer.
‘We were at home when it happened and we didn’t know what was going on,’ remembers Mike. ‘We called the ambulance and in hospital they were blunt; we were told there was nothing anybody would be able to do. We were plunged straight back into shock and fear as we didn’t expect a catastrophic event like that.
‘It almost immediately became about how to get Kerry out of hospital to hospice and that gave us determination and focus which got Kerry to hang in there.’
With the children still not knowing how ill Kerry was, Mike enlisted the help of the Marie Curie Hospice in Solihull who ‘moved heaven and earth to get Kerry out of hospital and into the hospice’, which was just around the corner from their house.
Having been told that Kerrymaybe had ‘a week, possibly two,’ the couple summoned a funeral celebrant and started making arrangements.
‘We went and sat with the children in the gardens and we told them, and it was just awful. The kids just cried. We had to quickly turn the conversation into how we were going to make the most of the days ahead of us, and reassure them that everything was going to be okay.
It was particularly tough going home afterwards, taking the kids and leaving Kerry alone.
‘However, it also brought quite a lot of calm at that point, because suddenly, all the worry went away and you begin to accept that the time has finally come.
‘Being in the hospice was a positive experience in a way. They set Kerry up with a huge family room with a TV so they could have sleepovers and film nights.
‘Friends and family could come and go and there were therapies available to Kerry, including massages that helped her sleep, which became a nightly ritual. Tommy said it was “like a five-star hotel for poorly people”.’
Kerry used her time in the hospice to prepare keepsakes for the children, including Christmas cards, birthday cards for their later years and handprinted pillow cases so she could be with them as they slept. They aren’t deep and meaningful messages, just seasonal greetings with hearts, signed ‘love from mum’.
However, as the family prepared to say their goodbyes, remarkably, Kerry rallied.
‘She had different ideas, and she started to recover from the bowel perforation, which is unheard of,’ says Mike. ‘Her friends would visit her and speak to me afterwards and say – she just doesn’t look like someone who’s about to die. And she started to say she was feeling better and she turned a corner.’
Kerry went for more tests and amazingly was discharged from the hospice three weeks after she fell ill. Doctors were cautious – still warning the family that she may only have a week or two left, but the mum-of -two walked out of the hospice smiling and feeling positive.
As December 2023 approached, the family had optimism and hope. They enjoyed a quiet Christmas, feeling thankful for the time that they had been told they wouldn’t have.
‘It was a really nice, but I certainly felt like it was the last one. We were just so grateful to have that extra time,’ Mike says.
Over the months, Kerry’s health started to falter and although she was determined she would bounce back, as her third Christmas since she fell ill approached, her condition worsened and she went back to the hospice.
‘Kerry was still quite adamant, but the nurses were quietly telling me I should start making plans.’
On 8 November 2023, Mike dropped the kids at school and received a phone call asking what time he would be getting to the hospice. ‘I arrived at nine and very suddenly, she just slipped away just after 11,’ he remembers. Kerry was just 43.
It was a heartbreaking loss but amid his grief, Mike was relieved the children were spared that difficult final goodbye. Instead, Kerry had recorded videos for the children.
I’d never watched them and had saved them in about a million different places. The day that Kerry passed away I sat with the kids, and we watched them.’
The family’s first Christmas without Kerry was a quiet affair, with them going for lunch with another family at a local hotel. However, Christmas 2024, was very different.
Kerry, who loved to journal, had planned an Australian Christmas years before, and it was important to Mike that the family make that trip on her behalf. So in December, they flew to Perth and Melbourne, where they visited the beach and saw kangaroos and koalas.
‘It was quite a different Christmas. It was enjoyable, awesome, amazing in parts. We saw sharks and Chloe got stung by a jellyfish and has a little scar on her wrist, which she is quite proud of. It was exciting, and fun and we revisited the botanical gardens where Kerry and I got engaged in 2008.’
As the family prepare for another Christmas without their mum, Tommy now 11, and nine-year-old Chloe are doing well, Mike says. They forego anniversaries and rituals, talking about their mum every day instead.
‘She is around us all the time’, Mike says simply.
Reflecting on losing his wife so young, he adds: ‘I massively struggled. The grief hits you the moment you get the diagnosis. It’s called anticipatory grief – you’re grieving for the life that you thought you were going to have.
‘But if you can embrace it while you’re going through it, it helps your journey a little bit.’
