What DO you do when you’re told you’ve got terminal cancer at 50? This mum of two ditched her husband, went round the world and found new love. Courageous — or plain selfish?
AS BUCKET lists go, it was rather unorthodox. The first item wasn’t the usual exotic holiday or taking up an extreme sport. Rather, upon learning she was dying of cancer not long after turning 50, Annabel Nnochiri immediately resolved to leave her husband.
Unhappy with her husband of 20 years and feeling trapped, she decided that what remained of her life would be free of constraints.
So determined was she to be free of her marriage that she went to elaborate lengths to plan her escape.
First, she declined to accompany her husband and their two children on their usual Easter holiday to Tenerife, saying she didn’t need a break. Then, as soon as they were gone, she moved her belongings out of the family home into a flat six miles away, which she had secretly rented.
As she packed her possessions, she sang Queen’s I Want To Break Free to give herself the courage to see her plan through.
Once released from the role of wife, she took off — to Thailand, America and Colombia, among other far-flung locations. She started salsa dancing and painting. The shackles of marriage were finally broken.
Today, though, more than five years after her terminal diagnosis — so far, two-and-a-half years longer than she expected to live — comes a most unexpected twist. Annabel, now 56, has begun a new romance with an old flame, who, she reveals, also has cancer. They started seeing each other in August.
Annabel first met Keith, a 54-year-old chemist, as a teenager. They had a brief romance, but Keith never forgot her.
One can’t help but wonder how Annabel can have seemingly found emotional contentment with another cancer sufferer, but she is adamant their relationship has been aided, not hindered, by their shared illnesses.
She’s with someone who fully understands what she’s going through; they can support one another and, she admits, living in the disease’s shadow gives an impetus to their relationship — a determination to enjoy every single second they have together.
In August, she met up with Keith for the first time in 36 years. Their first date in London took in the Tate Modern, a Greek restaurant and culminated in drinks on the 32nd floor of The Shard.
‘It may sound strange, but it’s so helpful having a partner who has cancer,’ says Annabel.
‘They know what you’re feeling without being pitying and superficial. It’s given me a new lease of life, something to make me look forward.’
It all seems quite a change for the woman who determinedly walked out on her marriage just a few years ago.
But, she says, until recently she would not have been open to a new relationship — quite simply because she expected to die, and would not have wanted to put someone else, as well as herself, through the anguish.
And so, while she dated a few other men after leaving Alan*, her husband, she never allowed things to become very serious.
Today, however, seven years since she first learned she had breast cancer, the disease has spread less than she feared. First diagnosed in 2010, the cancer spread to her left arm and right hip in 2012, but, apart from some slow progression in her hip over the past year, has developed no further. Annabel is daring to hope for a future.
Despite her hopes, battling the cancer that wants to kill her is a daily challenge. She has endured endless cycles of chemotherapy and other super-strength drugs that make her violently ill. Morphine numbs her crippling pain. Not only this, but she has developed lymphedema, swelling in one of her legs, as a result of the cancer, and now walks with a limp.
Annabel allowed the story of her flight from her husband to be filmed for a BBC documentary, A Time To Live, last May, providing an object lesson to the rest of us in making every second of our lives count.
And now we have a postscript — the romance with Keith. Few of us, perhaps, would consider a new relationship at such a time. But Annabel, the daughter of Antony Barrington-Brown, an acclaimed architect, inventor and explorer, is made of different stuff.
Her father is perhaps best known for taking the iconic image of DNA researchers James Watson and Francis Crick with their double helix model at Cambridge University in 1953.
Annabel’s mother, Pamela, also studied at Cambridge: botany and zoology. Annabel followed in her parents’ footsteps and studied Fine Art at one of Cambridge’s prestigious colleges. It was here, in 1985, that she met her future husband, an engineering student.
They married in 1992 when she was 31 years old and their son, Christian, now 23, followed two years later in 1994. A daughter, Stella, now 21, arrived in 1996.
For many years, the family led a normal existence. Annabel was an art teacher while Alan was an IT specialist. She admits they were content — at least at the outset. However, as time went on, Annabel says she became increasingly unhappy.
‘It was small things,’ she says. ‘For instance, he’d insist on doing the weekly shop because he said I spent too much money on food. I felt trapped. It was like an ongoing wearing down.
‘He would make a big thing about small things, mountains out of molehills. I was treading on eggshells all the time.’
After about 15 years, Annabel’s thoughts turned to leaving. The subject was raised several times — but always with the same outcome
‘We did discuss it on three occasions, but each time my husband became really, really upset and I couldn’t bear to let him be so upset, so I stayed. I compromised.’
Then a series of traumatic life events strengthened her resolve, beginning in 2010 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. A mastectomy, as well as radiotherapy and chemotherapy, followed. She also had three lymph nodes removed.
‘I was quite positive throughout treatment, but it does make you think quite strongly about life,’ says Annabel. ‘The year after, when I was in remission, I became quite depressed.’
Then, while still grappling with the aftermath of breast cancer as well as the strain of caring for her elderly mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease
‘I felt trapped. I was treading on eggshells all the time’ ‘I thought: Is this how I want to spend the time I have left?’
‘When I travel on my own, I feel 18 again’ ‘Having Keith in my life has given me new focus’
and is now in a care home, came further tragedy. Annabel was at home on the evening of January 24, 2012 when she took a call from her husband. Her 84-year-old father and 75-year-old stepmother had been involved in a collision with a lorry near their home. Both were killed instantly. ‘It was devastating,’ says Annabel. ‘I’d been quite scared of my dad when I was younger because he was quite strict, but we had grown close in the last few years of his life. He’d mellowed. ‘He had been married to Althea for 25 years and I was very close to her. She was so good with the grandchildren and she’d made my dad happy.’ Then, in March 2012, just two months after the car accident, Annabel began getting a crippling, ‘dagger-like’ pain in her right hip. A biopsy revealed an 8cm tumour there.
‘To my mind, the shock of my father and stepmother’s deaths brought the cancer back,’ she says.
Doctors ordered instant radiotherapy followed by chemotherapy, with the aim of preventing the cancer’s spread.
But as to her long-term future, they were frank: her condition was terminal. They didn’t know how much time she had left.
Desperate for some guidance, Annabel researched online and found, she says, that the average time of survival for those in a similar situation was about two-anda-half years.
This stark number made her take a hard look at her life.
‘When you get a terminal illness, you think, is this really how I want to spend the time I have left of my life? I realised the years I had left had to be the best they possibly could be.
‘I knew I needed to change my life. Whatever I was doing was making matters worse. Knowing my time left was limited gave me the courage to leave my husband. And at the time, I felt reasonably physically well.’
And so she embarked on her escape, deciding to move out when her husband wasn’t at home.
All was planned with meticulous precision. She secured the rental of a one-bedroom flat with the money from her inheritance from her father — and confided her plans to her teenage children, who were fully supportive of her choice.
‘They knew I was unhappy. Stella was 16 and Christian was 18 — it seemed the right time.’
A holiday in Tenerife at Easter 2013 was arranged for her husband and the children. Annabel said she wouldn’t be coming along. Her husband suspected nothing.
‘When they left, that gave me a whole week to clear the house of my things. I only took things that were personal to me. I felt very determined. I sang a lot of songs about freedom to myself, like Queen’s I Want to Break Free.’
When her husband and children returned from Tenerife, Annabel was safely ensconced in her new flat.
‘On the night they came back, I got a text from my son saying: “Mum, this is really hard, Dad is trying to buy you a birthday present at the airport.”
‘They got back to the house at 2am and my son and daughter raced up to bed because they knew what was about to happen. When my husband realised I wasn’t home, he sent me a text asking where I was. I replied that I’d left a letter on his bed explaining everything.
‘In the letter I’d told him I’d been thinking of leaving for a long time, that I felt trapped, that I didn’t love him any more. I said I needed to be free, be myself. I needed a break from everything to help me heal.’
Annabel requested also in the letter that Alan refrain from contacting her for a week, so as to get used to the reality that she was gone.
‘He didn’t call. In fact, once I’d done it he was very sensible about it all.’
When they did finally speak, it was agreed they would meet up in a park — neutral territory — a week later.
‘I was nervous, but it was OK,’ says Annabel.
‘We talked about the kids, my health and decided we would meet for an hour each week, make our separation civilised. That was important — for the children. And we’d spent 28 years of our life together, there was no reason why we shouldn’t be friends.
‘It was helpful to me this way, because I did feel guilty. We’d had a happy marriage for many years.’ It was agreed the children would continue to live in the house with their father and visit their mother at her flat. ‘I could only afford a small flat,’ explains Annabel, ‘and Christian, especially, was worried about his dad being on his own.’ Annabel had felt brave when she made her secret flit, but her body told her otherwise. First she contracted shingles, then scarlet fever. Soon afterwards she was parking her car when there was a loud crack in her left arm. ‘I suddenly felt very sick and dizzy. It was broken and the doctors discovered I had cancer in the bones in my arm.’ The disease was spreading. Despite the physical agonies, Annabel confesses to enjoying her new-found ‘freedom’ — especially not having anyone to answer to. Small things, such as the supermarket shop, became a mark of her liberty: ‘I took pleasure in going to the supermarket on my own and choosing the food I wanted.’ Her horizons broadened, too. She took her son to New York and made a solo tour of Colombia. There were trips to Bruges and Barcelona. She felt invigorated, youthful: ‘When I’m travelling on my own, it’s like I’m 18.’
It wasn’t just travel — she also joined an art group, a choir and took up salsa dancing. ‘Painting is very therapeutic. I force myself to do stuff to take my mind off it.’ It being the cancer, of course, which she calls ‘the cancer creep’.
Then, last August, Annabel received a message on Facebook from Keith.
‘I think one of my brothers told him I have cancer. It was a blast from the past. We’d liked each other as teenagers and had a fling. He used to come over to our house.
‘We exchanged messages and discovered quite a lot in common. Keith was divorced five years ago, the same time my husband and I split up. He also has two children. And, of course, he has cancer, albeit not terminal. His is a chronic cancer of the blood that is controlled with drugs, which he was diagnosed with in 2012 — the year I was told my cancer was terminal.
‘We arranged to meet up in London. We had a lovely time — our date lasted nine hours. Now, we speak twice a day on the phone and see each other every weekend. He comes here and sometimes I’ll make the effort to go over to his place in Essex, though getting about isn’t that easy for me any more. We’re very fond of each other.’
Today, Annabel, who took early retirement from teaching in 2015, lives in a flat which is filled with her bright and colourful paintings.
Physically, she’s much frailer than she used to be and she has had to give up the salsa dancing. ‘I can’t really do any exercise now — just walking.’
She is hoping the disease’s progression in her hip will be halted by a new chemotherapy drug she began taking last week.
‘It’s scary. [The cancer is] moving around a lot and I don’t know what’s happening. Most of all I’m scared of it going to my brain.’
Yet she manages a smile. ‘Having Keith in my life has given me new focus. I don’t know what that future is. But the rollercoaster goes on.’ *ANNABEL’S ex-husband’s name has been changed to Alan to protect his identity.