I am crushed with indescribable pain
Ex-Blue Peter star’s anguish as wife dies just three days after being diagnosed with leukaemia
FORMER Blue Peter presenter Simon Thomas has told how he is ‘ crushed with indescribable pain’ after his wife died just three days after being diagnosed with leukaemia.
Mr Thomas, who now works for Sky Sports, called on people to pray for their eight-year-old son, Ethan, who is ‘precious and in bits’ over his mother’s death.
In a heart-breaking post on Twitter, the 44-year-old presenter said his wife, Gemma, died on Friday surrounded by family and friends.
He wrote yesterday: ‘Today I am crushed with indescribable pain.’
After feeling ‘very unwell’ last weekend, 40-year-old Mrs Thomas visited the doctor three times but they failed to spot the cancer and advised her to rest, her husband said.
But after attending hospital on Monday, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia– a type of blood cancer that affects the bone marrow and is more common in older people. She was rushed to see a specialist and underwent chemotherapy on Tuesday but her condition quickly deteriorated. ‘For the first couple of days she was responding well, but then went downhill very quickly. She had bleeding on the brain,’ Mr Thomas told a news website yesterday. ‘I was told she would be gone in a few hours.’
‘My little boy had a little time with her but she wasn’t able to speak to him. She passed away just before 6pm. Today is the hardest pain I have ever felt ever.’
In a post on Instagram, Mr Thomas paid tribute to Maggie’s Oxford, a centre which provides support to people with cancer and their families. He wrote: ‘In the confusion and the pain of the last few days for my wife… this amazing place is a wonderful oasis of calm.’
Thomas spent six years with Blue Peter, joining in 1999 after Richard Bacon was axed after admitting he took cocaine.
He landed a job on Sky Sports in 2005, where he now presents live Premier League football.