I thought my man was cheating but the truth was so much worse
Trisha Nation, 35, from Royal Wootton Bassett, found the love of her life. But a shock diagnosis changed it all...
Taking off my coat, I sat back and let out a deep sigh. ‘Fancy a glass of red?’ my friend Kristen, 37, asked from the bar.
I’d headed to the pub after a long day, needing a girly catchup with my best friend.
Kristen brought over a bottle for us to share, and we delved into normal love-life chatter.
‘Anyone new on the scene?’ she asked.
‘Oh you know, nothing much going on with me!’ I replied.
It was April 2011, and I’d just turned 25.
I’d had a few relationships over the years, but nothing ever that serious.
And now, I’d been single for around six months.
I’d always dreamed of being in a loving marriage by this point of my life.
Instead, I was a single mum to Lexi, eight, Hayden, seven, and Chelsea, one.
I adored them, but having an extra pair of hands to help me out wouldn’t go amiss.
Just then, I spotted someone at the bar – a gorgeous bloke wearing a postman’s jacket.
A man in uniform, I thought, grinning.
Gulping down my wine, I went over to his spot at the bar and struck up a conversation.
‘What brings you here then?’ I asked him.
He grinned with a dashing smile and turned towards me.
‘A hard day of mimicking Postman Pat,’ he chuckled.
He told me his name was Tony Stevens – he was 30 and worked as a postie – which explained the jacket.
We had a flirty chat, but more than anything, we laughed and laughed.
Before I knew it, we were exchanging numbers.
Tony also told me about his two boys – Kyle, then eight, and Mikey, four. Three hours later, we both called it a night, and he gave me a big bear hug as we went our separate ways.
‘Maybe I’ve found Prince Charming after all,’ I smiled.
Things moved pretty quickly after that, and Tony and I were so happy.
We moved in together just three months later, and fast forward a few months, we were pretty settled in.
Kyle yle and Mikey would be with their mum during the week, but on weekends, with all seven of us together, we were such happy family.
That October, Tony asked me to marry him.
‘It would be an honour to call myself your wife!’ I exclaimed, ecstatic.
But before we could start planning a wedding, another surprise was coming our way.
‘I hope you’re ready to be a dad again, I told Tony after taking a pregnancy test.
Just like the first time we’d met, Tony embraced me in a big bear hug, told me he couldn’t ask for anything better than sharing a child with me.
In July 2012, we had our son Jacob.
Three years later, in March
2015, our daughter Madison came along, completing our family.
‘You and our kids are everything I need,’ Tony announced one night.
Although we never got a chance to get married, he was the perfect dad and partner, and the man who I had dreamed of all my life. Everything was perfect. Then, one evening in December 2018, Tony came out of the bathroom looking rather worried.
‘Trish, can you have a look at this for me?’ he muttered sheepishly. I moved towards him as he revealed a big lump on his groin.
It looked like a big lump of fatty tissue had gathered all in one place.
‘That doesn’t look good,’ I told him, urging him to get it checked out.
Tony called his GP, but in the two-week period we waited for his appointment, he started showing very worrying symptoms of something neither of us could explain. The lump was getting bigger, and in the middle of the night, Tony was getting up out of bed, drenched in sweat.
He was also extremely tired and was losing weight.
Just four days before Christmas, Tony went to see his doctor, who then sent him for an emergency biopsy at Great Western Hospital in Swindon to test the lump.
I wondered what on earth it could be.
Hours later, as we arrived home, Tony’s phone rang.
‘It must be the doctor,’ he said nervously.
Around 20 minutes later, he walked back into the room, looking frightened.
‘Well?’ I asked, keen to know what was going on. ‘Don’t get mad,’ Tony warned.
‘But they said it isn’t cancerous. Actually, they said it’s an STI – usually one that only gay men get...’
The STI – known as Lymphogranuloma venereum – is a type of chlamydia.
LGV is very rarely seen in heterosexual men and women in Britain, but some cases are being seen among gay and bisexual men.
I felt my blood run cold. ‘What?!’ I screamed, lurching up from the sofa and waving my arms around. This meant only one thing. Tony had slept with someone else – a man!
‘Who is he then?!’ I fumed. ‘This man you’ve been seeing on the side. This man who’s given you this filthy disease.’
Before I gave Tony the chance to answer, I stormed upstairs and locked myself in the bathroom.
How could he do this to me? I thought, feeling so angry.
I was so confused – did this mean Tony was gay?
Not only that, but the man I thought I’d be with for the rest of my life had betrayed me.
‘You cheating bastard!’ I yelled, becoming furious...
The lump was getting bigger
I was stupid for trusting him
Wiping angry tears from my face, I looked at myself in the mirror. How could he do this to me? I thought, the question repeating in my head.
I thought we’d been happy – why would Tony sleep with someone else? Another man?
Just then, I heard a soft knocking at the bathroom door – Tony had come up to explain.
‘I’ve haven’t been with anyone but you, Trish,’ he said through the door.
‘You must believe me. You’re the love of my life and the mother of my children!’
But there was no getting out of this.
The STI was proof in my eyes.
I swung open the door in a rage and glared at him.
‘Doctors don’t lie, Tony, but apparently you do,’ I spat, furious that he had the audacity to speak my name.
Tony insisted there had been some kind of mistake, but I didn’t believe a word of it.
After all, the doctor had made his diagnosis, so it must be correct.
Determined to prove his innocence, Tony booked another doctor’s appointment as soon as he could, but that was an entire month away.
‘I’ll be sleeping in the spare room,’ I informed him, not able to look him in the eye.
I felt completely broken. How could I have been so stupid to fall for a man who would do this to me? I thought.
Christmas came a few days later, and it was horrendous.
I tried to keep it together for the kids, but inside I was so angry, so hurt.
I didn’t say a word to Tony the whole day.
And the next month was complete agony.
With my job at Subway, I wasn’t financially stable enough to live on my own.
I thought about taking the kids and moving in with my mum Teresa, 54, but she only had a two-bedroom flat. So I had to grin and bear it while living in the same house as Tony, waiting impatiently for his next doctor’s appointment to come around.
We tried to be civil in front of the kids – especially Jacob and Madison – but when they weren’t around, I was pretty nasty to him.
The older kids noticed something was wrong, and without going into detail as to why, I told them that Tony and I were separated.
Our blissful life as a family of nine had come to a bitter end.
At long last, in mid-january 2019, Tony went back to the doctor.
I waited at home, expecting the same result as before.
He’s going to all lengths to cover up his lies, I thought to myself as he drove off.
But when Tony came back, he didn’t bring any answers.
Instead, he’d been told the same as before, and my heart broke all over again.
‘Like I said, Tony, doctors don’t lie,’ I seethed.
Tony attended another appointment in March 2019, determined to prove himself. A few hours later, he rang. ‘Trish, I’ve been admitted to hospital,’ he said.
‘Can you come?’
In that moment,
I knew something serious was going on, so I rushed out to meet him.
As I walked into the ward, I felt my stomach drop – Tony’s face was as white as a sheet. ‘Hey,’ he said softly.
For the first time in months, I saw a man that needed help.
I let my feelings take a back seat, sat down next to Tony.
‘It’s not an STI,’ he said. ‘I never have and never will be with anyone other than you, I need you to know that.’ ‘What’s going on?’ I asked. ‘They’ve discovered that the lump was a sign of something else,’ he replied. ‘Something much more serious.’
‘Oh Tony,’ I said. ‘What is it?’ With one big sigh, he told me what was going on.
Tony had been honest with me all along – he’d never been with anyone else and he didn’t have a sexually transmitted infection at all.
He had cancer. My heart dropped as he said the words. Tony’s symptoms had been getting worse, so the doctor decided to run more tests this time. And that’s when they found something called nodular lymphocyte predominant Hodgkin lymphoma – a rare cancer of the lymph cells. So rare, in fact,
that his doctor had said Tony was one in a million.
The STI he’d been told he had was the kind that specifically attacked lymph nodes, so it was no wonder he’d been misdiagnosed.
Now, though, as he hadn’t been given the right medication all this time, Tony had developed sepsis, too, as infections were waging a war on his body.
I felt my world collapse beneath my feet once again.
Tony had been truthful all along, and was going through something unimaginable the whole time.
He’d been fighting cancer, while I couldn’t even look him in the eye.
I wanted the world to swallow me up.
How could I have done that to him in his moment of need?
‘I’m so sorry, Tony,’ I said, taking his hand as tears streamed down my face. ‘Can we go back to being us?’ Part of me didn’t expect him to say yes – I’d been so horrible to him for the past few months, and I worried there was no going back now.
Tony did seem hesitant at first.
‘I don’t want you saying all this just because you feel sorry for me,’ he said. ‘No,’ I insisted. ‘I love you.’ ‘Let’s leave it in the past then,’ he smiled, squeezing my hand.
Now, finally with a correct diagnosis, Tony could receive the help he needed.
Pumped full of antibiotics to fight off the sepsis, I hoped he’d make a full recovery.
But while the sepsis was on its way out, Tony’s cancer was much worse than we thought.
A few days later, after running more tests, his doctor called me aside.
‘We think he only has five years,’ he said gravely.
‘Five years?!’ I gasped, bursting into tears.
I felt like I was living in an awful nightmare.
Tony was discharged a month later, having beaten sepsis, and was given a treatment plan for his cancer.
We were told that while it wouldn’t cure him, it would give him more time.
First, he had a procedure to remove some of the cancerous nodes from his groin.
But an infection followed and he developed lymphoedema – a build up of fluid in his legs.
Tony then underwent 15 rounds of radiotherapy, and will soon start chemotherapy.
In the meantime, he has to wear specialised bandages all the time to control all the fluid in his legs.
We’re now trying to raise money to pay for a special pump that will help with this.
He’s scared of one day not being around for me and the kids, and to be honest, I’m terrified, too.
Lexi and Kyle, now 17, Hayden, 16, Mikey, 13, and Chelsea, 11, are so scared of losing their dad, and have taken it hard.
Jacob, now eight, and Madison, five, are too young to really understand, but for now, we’re making the most of our time together.
I still feel incredibly guilty for ever doubting Tony.
I know any woman in my position would have done the same – after all, his doctor had told him that he had an STI.
I look back at all that time I spent being so horrible to him, and feel so awful – that should have been happy time spent together.
Now, though, I’ve promised to stand by Tony’s side no matter what hurdles are thrown our way.
We might not have all the time in the world, but we have been able to reform our bond, and are even thinking about planning our wedding.
All that is important now is making memories as a family, and remembering our love for each other.
After all, Tony is still the same man I met in the pub all those years ago.
Even if our future is shorter than we’d hoped, we will make the most of it, together.
I begged Tony to take me back