It’s my daughter’s birthday I hope it’s not the last one
WITH morphine still coursing through his veins, Adam Blain whispered to the surgeon who had just removed a chunk of his brain equal in size to a large pear: “Should I get any Christmas cards this year?”
The life-changing operation was in May 2014 and the surgeon advised him it would be worth investing in cards for Christmas that year but cautioned about buying any for 2016.
Even with surgery to remove his right frontal lobe – where the aggressive glioblastoma cancer was concentrated – and radiotherapy, his chances of surviving for more than a year were slim.
However, not only has Adam confounded the cancer statisticians, he has also put his borrowed time to good use by chronicling his struggles in two books – laced with some darkly humorous observations.
The late US Senator John McCain was just one of many admirers who found comfort and much-needed laughs in his first book, Pear Shaped. McCain’s wife Cindy tweeted Adam to tell him it was the “best medicine ever” for her husband as he fought his own battle with brain cancer.
“Don’t ask me why, but when it comes to tumours the doctors make comparisons with fruit,” says Adam, 48, a Cambridge-educated former corporate lawyer.
“Some people have tumours the size of grapes or cherries but they told me mine was as big as a pear, hence the title of the books. For some reason the analogy just stuck in my head and the word pear has a big meaning in my life.”
Before Pear, as he calls it, his life could not have been better. His wife Lucinda, 49, is – rather ironically – a well respected oncologist at North Middlesex Hospital. They live in a Victorian terrace in north London with their three children and he was doing well with a top London law firm.
With a wide circle of friends, they relished holidays abroad, walking and eating their favourite foods.
All that came crashing down in May 2014 when Lucinda realised Adam’s long-lasting, blinding headaches were not normal.
SHE drove to work and dropped him at the A&E department, saying he needed an urgent brain scan and told her husband she wanted to “rule out anything nasty”.
While she went off to the oncology department, Adam had the scan and then texted Lucinda to say he had to get back to work.
But she had a quick look at the results and saw an image of a large tumour pushing Adam’s brain and which, if untreated, could rupture. “I was in a side room waiting for the results and Lucinda came in looking very worried,” recalls Adam. “She told me it was serious and then started crying. I was in shock and she was too. But I’m glad it was Lucinda who broke the news. It was surreal but it was lovely to be able to hold her.”
Warned he would probably be dead in weeks without radical surgery, he underwent a lengthy brain operation a few days later at a London hospital.
Remaining in full-time work turned out to be out of the question because Adam suffers short-term memory loss and difficulties with spacial awareness. “By the time the bandages came off I was feeling better,” he says. “I’ve always been a bit of a comedian. I love giving after-dinner speeches.
“I could see there were some funny moments in what had happened so I started to write them down. Just keeping some notes, as material that I might be able to use in the future.
“But then I started thinking that if I don’t have long to live I should find a way of getting some money together for my wife and family. I put all my writings together and we thought it would work as a book.
“In the end it was easier to selfpublish through Amazon. The royalties paid for a fortnight’s holiday for the five of us and some nights out, so that has been fantastic.
“I’m hoping my second book, Grin And Pear It, will pay for treats for the family in the years after my death.”
For now, writing and concentrating on his family are his priorities. As he speaks in his kitchen, there is a blackboard where his wife writes reminders of what he should be doing.
Every Friday Adam, who is Jewish, bakes a ritual Challah braided loaf for his family to enjoy that Shabbat evening. Tomorrow his youngest child, Thea, will be nine, so treats are being planned with the other children, Sacha, 14, and Jonah, 16, who loves to play the electric guitar.
Adam says: “Birthdays are very big events in our household so it will be a very special day. It will be a day of
mixed emotions for me – happy to see Thea celebrate another birthday but wondering if I will see many more of her birthdays.
“My wife and my children are brilliant at lifting my moods. I have always been honest with the children.”
Lu, as Lucinda likes to be known, is amazed by how he copes. “He takes the children to school and works hard around the house,” she says. “However, he does get tired and he forgets information very quickly.”
In the Jewish tradition the parents will give each of the children gifts for eight days over the Christmas period. They don’t have a tree or give gifts on Christmas Day.
“It’s a lovely time of year and we enjoy it as a family,” says Adam. “I used to chart my survival on whether I would see Christmas or not. At the moment everything is stable, so I want to see many more. But we’ll have to wait and see how this unfolds.”