Claire Curtis, 30, from Plymouth, hopes her kids will remember her no matter what…
A cruel diagnosis
Pulling the biggest frown I’d ever seen, my threeyear-old daughter Millie was very unhappy indeed. It was September 2017, and my partner Tom, 34, and I had just told her she was going to have a baby brother.
‘I wanted a sister!’ she wailed. Millie loved dressing up as Rapunzel and had dreamed of a little sister who would swish beside her in a princess costume.
‘You can still play games with your brother,’ Tom laughed.
When Charlie was born in February 2018, Millie changed her tune – she was besotted!
But giving birth to Charlie hadn’t been easy.
‘I can’t seem to push very well,’ I said to Tom during labour.
I was confused – when Mille had come along in October 2014, I’d had no problems.
This time, though, I felt so weak, and really struggled.
I did it, though, and felt an overwhelming rush of love as soon as I saw Charlie’s tuft of blond hair.
He weighed 8lb 11oz, but I’d needed to be cut quite a bit so he could be born, so instead of getting immediate skin-to-skin cuddles, he was handed to Tom while I had a blood transfusion.
Hours later, despite feeling so tired, I smiled and took Charlie into my arms.
Back home, fatigue continued to seep through me. Must be the blood loss, I thought. But apart from breastfeeding Charlie, the only other thing I seemed to do was sleep. I just couldn’t shake off the exhaustion.
‘Must be because I’ve got two little ones,’ I reasoned with Tom.
But, two months after Charlie was born, I felt a dull ache at the back of my eye.
The dull headaches persisted over the next few days, and then weeks.
One morning, at 2am, I woke up feeling sick.
I managed to climb out of bed and make it to the loo, where I vomited some kind of fluid.
Days later, I was sick again through the night, my head still throbbing. I’d always been healthy, never suffered from migraines – I just couldn’t understand it.
‘It’s probably just baby brain,’ my doctor said. ‘The arrival of another baby can take its toll.’
His words made sense – all the work involved in looking after Charlie and Millie had caused the fuzziness I was wading through.
But the anti-sickness tablets I’d been prescribed made no difference.
One evening, while I was watching telly, Millie began to cry in her room upstairs.
I headed up, but halfway up the stairs, a feeling of fire flashed through my brain.
Suddenly, I couldn’t move – my legs were locked.
The stairs seemed to wobble in front of me, and then they went in and out of focus.
‘Tom!’ I called.
Some feeling came back into my legs, and tentatively, I sat down on the stairs, consumed by dizziness.
Was this baby brain? Pain
I was told not to worry about it
pounded through my skull.
Later on, I thought maybe it had something do with my eyesight, so I booked in to see an optician.
‘I can give you the results now,’ he said a few days later, handing me the chart to look at.
Suddenly, though, he took the chart away from me.
‘You’d better go to the hospital,’ he said.
But I’d seen those horrible words – brain/ spinal tumour.
Terrified, I sat with Tom in front of the specialist, listening.
I had a tumour the size of an orange in my brain, caused by a swelling behind my eyes.
The build-up of pressure had caused the pain.
This was no baby brain – it was a brain tumour!
Feeling numb, I stumbled into the corridor where I collapsed in tears.
Later, I held Mille and Charlie close to me.
What will they do without their mummy? I thought, terrified.
A month later, I was due to have brain surgery to remove the tumour.
It was risky because the mass was in such an awkward place, so I was to have an awake craniotomy – an op where the patient is kept conscious so surgeons can monitor the effects.
I’d had tests beforehand, reciting the alphabet backwards.
Initially, I was put to sleep first so that a flap of skin could be cut at the front of my skull, then a drill was used to open it up.
I was then woken up while my brain was exposed, and the tumour was removed. I remember reciting the alphabet backwards, but that’s about all.
This was so the surgeons could check they weren’t damaging anything during the op.
Tom and Millie came to see me afterwards, but my face was all black and swollen. ‘Mummy had something bad in her head, so doctors took it out,’ I said to Millie.
Three days later, Tom was with me as I sat in front of the consultant. It was bad news. Tests showed my tumour was cancerous – a grade three malignant tumour, very aggressive.
The cancer cells were inside my brain, and it was too dangerous to try and take them out.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s incurable and will grow back,’ the consultant said.
‘How much time do I have?’ I gulped nervously.
‘Between three and five years,’ he replied.
Tom and I sobbed together, feeling utterly broken.
But those tears also brought a new determination.
I’ve had chemotherapy for the last year to delay the return of the tumour for as long as possible.
But now I want to give my kids some amazing memories for when I’m no longer around.
‘I’m going to make every Christmas a wonderful time for them to remember,’ I said to Tom.
But last Christmas was one to truly remember. Millie and Charlie were watching telly with Tom, while I was upstairs having a hot shower. Flicking my hair dry, I walked into the living room. And there they were – Charlie and Millie side by side, each wearing a T-shirt with letters on the front.
My eyes followed to Millie’s little chest first.
Mummy, will you… it read. And then my eyes continued onto Charlie’s little chest…
Marry Daddy?
And then, there was Tom, bending down on one knee! He pushed something towards me – a silver ring with diamonds. ‘Yes!’ I beamed, as the kids clapped and cheered.
When me and Tom get married in July in a converted barn in Liskeard, Cornwall, Charlie and Millie will both have starring roles. Charlie will be our pageboy and Millie my beautiful flower girl – more memories for us all to cherish. But I can’t pretend that I don’t have my low moments.
When I’m on my own and a sad song comes on the radio, I get a frog
Will they be left without a mum?
in my throat.
I try to imagine what Charlie will look like when he’s a man.
I so desperately want to see the man he’ll become, and the woman Millie will turn into.
I know I probably won’t.
But I won’t give up.
I’ve joined a support group for people suffering with the same thing as I am.
And some of them are here, 10 years after they were diagnosed.
I’ll keep striving to stay with my family for as long as possible.
In the meantime, I’m determined the give the kids the happy times they deserve.
I’ve gone back to work at a children’s centre to pay for the adventures I want them to store up in their hearts and keep safe.
I hope they’re able to bring them out when I’m no longer here.
I want them to relive my excited yells as I squealed my head off with Millie when we went on every ride at Disneyland, Paris.
I want them to remember our giggles as we mimicked the penguins at the zoo in Torquay.
I’ll never forget their wonder as the birds waddled into view.
Nor will I forget the time we pulled on our wellies and marched along the Devon cliffs.
We splashed in puddles and then wandered through the woods.
It breaks my heart, but I may not be here when Charlie becomes an adult or when Millie walks down the aisle at her own wedding.
But I will always be with them, in their hearts.