JOY AND PAIN
Dad facing up to life with premature new-born after wife is diagnosed with terminal cancer
THEY have just become a family, but now they face saying goodbye in the most heartbreaking way possible.
Taxi driver Neil Potts, from North Shields, met his wife Ebru in 2015 when she was a passenger in his cab – and it was love at first sight.
The pair were preparing to start a new life together in 2016 when they got married and were overjoyed to learn they were expecting their first child.
But their world came crashing down when, just five months into the pregnancy, Ebru was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
The call centre worker underwent chemotherapy while pregnant, and baby Kaiden was born two months early when doctors decided it would be safe to deliver him via c-section.
Ebru continued her treatment after having her son, and in January was told that the cancer had gone.
But, just two months later, she began experiencing back pain, and scans showed that the 34-year-old now had 14 tumours in her brain.
Now the family say they are “devastated beyond belief” after learning that Ebru’s tumours are starting to haemorrhage, and there is nothing more doctors can do for her.
Devoted husband Neil, 33, has spoken of his agony at watching his wife in the final stages of her fight, and facing life as a single dad.
“It’s just awful seeing her the way she is now,” he said.
“She’s sleeping all the time, she has no energy and she gets very confused. There are days when she can’t even remember the baby.
“She’s always so smiley and chatty, and it’s just not her. She can’t break a smile now.”
The young family’s agony started when Ebru began getting pains and bleeding while carrying Kaiden.
She was diagnosed with rare stage 3b small cell neu-
roendocrine carcinoma of the cervix (cervical cancer) and immediately started chemotherapy.
The pair then had an agonising decision to make regarding their unborn child.
“They said they could get the baby out now but there was a 30% chance he would die, so we waited until she was 31 weeks pregnant.
“My head was just battered because I was worrying for both of them. I kept thinking: ‘Am I going to lose my wife and my baby?’
“Kaiden was born on October 26 at 3lb 2oz – two months premature but he’s done brilliantly well.”
Ebru’s treatment continued, with chemotherapy and radiotherapy taking its toll on them as a new family.
They started looking to the future together when the family were told Ebru’s cancer had gone.
But in March this year Ebru was rushed to hospital with severe back pain and was told the cancer was now stage 4, and had travelled to her brain with multiple tumours.
Now the family are faced with the devastating prospect of saying goodbye as Ebru reaches the final stages of the disease.
Neil said: “They said the tumours were haemorrhaging now and there’s nothing they can do for her.
“It’s just horrendous – everything we’ve been through from getting married until this.”
Neil’s brother Chris has now started an online fundraising page after selfemployed cabbie Neil’s earnings plummeted during his wife’s illness.
Chris said: “Everyone involved is devastated beyond belief that a previously healthy 34-year-old embarking on her lifelong dream of being a mother to Kaiden, and wife to Neil is coming to an end so terribly.
“We are all trying to help but the costs involved in looking after Ebru at this late stage and the aftermath of what is to come is worrying for Neil and Kaiden.”
Neil is also urging women with similar symptoms to visit the doctor to get themselves checked out.
To help go to https://www. gofundme.com/ neil-ebru-new-parent-cancer fight