It was my last day before maternity leave last August, and as I set my out-of-office, I was full of excitement. I got home half an hour before my husband, Michael, and arranged the baby gifts we’d been given for him to see on the kitchen table. I couldn’t wait for him to walk through the door. But when he did, what could have been such an exciting day turned into the most tragic one. A few hours earlier, Michael had been diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer. There in our hallway, at eight and a half months pregnant, I tried to process the news that our lives were never going to be what we’d imagined.
With every hospital appointment that followed, the news got worse; we were told it was a rare and aggressive cancer for which chemotherapy has limited benefits. He was given a life expectancy of 12 to 19 months and started an intense chemotherapy programme – but following a serious reaction to it, he was rushed into hospital late in September. Friends took it in turns to stay with me as I panicked about Michael’s health – and whether I was going into labour.
By luck, Michael was discharged in time to travel across London straight from one hospital to another, meaning he could be by my side as our daughter Margot was born. I felt very anxious at how weak he seemed, but I’d been dreading giving birth alone – the fact that we were together right then was all that mattered. Six months on, watching how brilliant he is with Margot and seeing the deep love he has for her makes me feel like someone’s playing a cruel game. That such a good dad – a man made for fatherhood – should face this many hurdles feels incredibly harsh.
During my pregnancy, I’d told a colleague that one of the things I was most excited about was getting to see Michael as a father. After his diagnosis, he said to me, ‘Being a dad was one of those things in life I knew I’d be great at. How is this happening to us now?’ Michael takes Margot on a morning walk nearly every day and he’s always doing funny voices to make her laugh as he reads stories to her. She finds him absolutely hilarious, and her obliviousness to the situation is heartbreaking – but in equal measure, it’s what keeps us going. I look forward to falling asleep at night because it’s the only time I can forget everything.
Now, the avenues to save Michael’s life are closing down. There’s only so much chemo a body can take. That’s why we want to try one last shot, which might help us buy a bit more time together. In the New Year, we were given a flicker of hope when we were told about a drugs trial that had delivered encouraging results – in many cases, life expectancy was considerably extended. The catch is that the drugs aren’t yet licensed, so our insurance won’t cover them and they’re eye-wateringly expensive, at around £200,000. It’s a phenomenal amount of money but our hope is that we can raise enough to get Michael 12 months’ worth of treatment in order to improve our chances of reaching some important milestones together. Margot turns one in September our best friends are travelling from Australia to spend Christmas with us with their new baby and next year we’ll both be turning 40.
I’m not usually the kind of person to broadcast my personal life on social media and we felt awkward and uncomfortable making the decision, but we had no choice but to start crowd-funding. We launched a campaign, Team Monk, earlier this month, named after the nickname Michael’s friends call him by. I’m a super-self-conscious person and I worried people might judge us for putting our story out there. But the response has been utterly overwhelming. In the first week, we reached half of our target. I know what makes Michael such an amazing person: he’s sensitive, funny, loving and caring. But it’s been emotional reading the hundreds of messages from people who’ve donated who recognise these qualities, too – from people we went to school with to our newest NCT friends. Our big hope is that new developments in research might appear in the next 12 months, if we can just keep him healthy. The world is changing so fast, we’ve got to stay hopeful. We’re so incredibly grateful to anyone who can donate – however little or large – and to those who can share our campaign or help with fundraising ideas.
When I’m awake in the night feeding Margot, I can’t help but think about all the possible outcomes. I worry about whether I can do it on my own. I think about not having someone to share the hard bits with – or worse, Michael not being around to share the joy of the really good bits. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but I can’t sit here and do nothing. Having this campaign has helped us feel proactive. Who knows if it will work. All I know is we’ve got to try everything.
Support Lauren and Michael's fundraising campaign at uk.gofundme.com/team-monk