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For 50 years, my husband never went to the doctor – and then everything changed... Jayne Ireland, 57, Billericay
Then his mother Elsie solved the mystery...
Hearing my hubby Antony clear his throat for the umpteenth time that evening, I frowned.
‘You really should see a doctor about that,’ I said.
For as long as I’d known him, Antony, then 52, had never been the sort of person to get ill.
Never caught a cold or got the flu.
But now, in September 2013, he was suffering with a persistent cough.
He’d always had it, but in recent weeks he’d been coughing more than usual.
In April 2014, I went into hospital for a hip replacement. And it was there, as he leant on my bed, I noticed something strange about his fingernails.
They were bigger and flatter than before.
‘What’s wrong with your nails?’ I asked, alarmed.
‘What are you talking about?’ he laughed.
He insisted he’d always had big nails.
Dropping it, I hoped I was being overcautious.
But at a dinner party a few months later, our family friend Phillipa, 23, pulled me to one side.
‘I’m worried about Uncle Antony,’ she said. ‘What is it?’ I asked. Phillipa was a trainee doctor and she’d spotted
Antony’s enlarged nails.
Explaining it was called clubbing, she looked concerned.
‘We’ve just studied it and it’s normally a sign of problems with the heart or lungs,’ she said.
Phillipa was insistent Antony should see a doctor.
In September 2014, he made an appointment with his GP.
The doctor agreed something was wrong and referred Antony to Southend University Hospital.
There, he had a bronchoscopy – when a tube is passed down into the lungs to see inside – and a lung biopsy.
With no history of lung problems in the family, we hoped for the best.
Only, later that month, we received the diagnosis.
‘It looks like idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis,’ said his doctor.
IPF – a build-up of scar tissue causing the lungs to become stiffer and lose their elasticity – is a progressive condition. It can be caused by acid reflux, viruses or breathing in certain types of dust.
None of these had been an issue for Antony – but his mother Elsie solved the mystery. ‘Your dad had that,’ she said. Antony’s dad Alf had died from IPF in his 70s. Sadly, the prognosis for Antony was just as bleak.
Just one in five patients survive more than five years with IPF.
We were devastated.
Treatment was limited, too. Medication to slow the scarring, home remedies and healthy eating, but no cure.
A year later, Antony took a turn for the worse.
In and out of hospital, it soon became clear there wasn’t much time left.
‘I really want to help others,’ Antony confessed to me one day.
So he allowed tissue and blood samples to be taken for research. And whenever trainee doctors visited the ward, he would happily answer any of their questions.
That’s when I started working with the British Lung Foundation to help fund more research for cures.
In January 2018, my darling husband Antony, 56, passed away.
He was my childhood sweetheart, the love of my life. It broke my heart to lose him. But it’s a comfort to know he’s not in pain any more.
Now, I’m continuing to share his story and raise awareness in his honour.