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From the cradle to the grave

How long would Bobbie have with our baby?


Published by: Jean Jollands and Jonathon Forrester
Published on: 9 August 2012

The line was crackly, but I could still hear the emotion in my hubby's voice. ‘Stay strong, darling,' he hushed. ‘You're doing great.'
I so desperately wished Bobbie, 26, was here with me. It was three weeks before my due date, but I'd just been told that the baby was breech. I needed an emergency Caesarean. But he was thousands of miles away in Somalia, as part of his job in the navy.
We'd only had a few calls and emails here and there. In fact, in his last email Bobbie had moaned about a pain in his bits. Nothing like your morning sickness though, he'd added. So don't worry!
Somehow, we'd managed to place this emergency call to his ship - and now he was willing me on as best he could.
‘I'll be there with you as soon as I can,' he promised.
‘I love you,' I sobbed. 
So it was my mum Maureen, 53, who held my hand as doctors performed the operation. Before I knew it, our baby boy had arrived in the world.
‘Meet Thomas,' I sobbed to Mum as I cradled him that first time. He was named after Bobbie's dad and granddad, and had the most beautiful big blue eyes.
It was three long days though before Bobbie arrived home. I opened the door one afternoon and there he was! Stocky, with gorgeous brown eyes, I'd been in love with him since the day we'd met, three years before. 
‘Meet your daddy, little man,'
I whispered, as Thomas curled his tiny fingers around Bobbie's.
‘Hello, son,' he grinned, his eyes brimming with tears. 
Over the next few days, Bobbie spent every spare moment with our boy, burping him over his shoulder, and even getting up for the night feeds.
We'd only been married nine months, and now Thomas was here, everything seemed perfect. We were so wrapped up
in being new parents, I hadn't realised that the pain in one of Bobbie's testicles was starting to get worse.
‘It's just so sore,' he admitted one day. He'd been to the GP a few times and had been given antibiotics, but it seemed they weren't working.
Then, a couple of days later, I got up to give Thomas his feed when I found Bobbie collapsed on the bathroom floor. He was crying in pain. ‘I'm taking you to hospital,' I told him.
Doctors put him on morphine for the pain as they did tests. At first, they thought it might be a kidney infection, but then they did a CT scan. 
I'd popped back home for a few hours when Bobbie called with the results. His voice was so calm. ‘Don't panic,' he said quietly. Why would I? ‘But the results of the CT scan are back. The doctors say I've got cancer - lymphoma.'
I crumpled to the kitchen floor, crying and shaking. ‘Please, no,' I begged. ‘No! Not Bobbie.' I started trembling, and suddenly gentle hands were guiding me to the sofa. Eh? Oh, of course, Mum was here. As I explained everything, I saw my shock mirrored in her face.
She stayed with Thomas while I rushed to my hubby's side. I listened, bewildered, as doctors explained that he had cancer in his groin, neck, lungs and liver. Just eight weeks before, I'd given birth to our son at the hospital - now his daddy was battling for his life.
Bobbie was allowed home ahead of his chemo, and he used the opportunity to steal every precious second he could with his boy. Cradled Thomas on his lap, played guitar to him.
It was as if my two men were in their own little world where no one could hurt them. Like a lioness, I wanted to do everything I could to protect them. 
But soon after, Bobbie developed jaundice, and had to go back to hospital. We ended up celebrating our first wedding anniversary by his bedside, toasting it with a Chinese takeaway.
‘Whoever said romance is dead?' he joked. Even I had to laugh.
But as the chemo got under way, Bobbie became sensitive to light and loud noises, and could barely tolerate food. Seeing him so pale and thin, my heart wrenched. He'd always been the loud one, bursting with life. 
As I darted in and out of hospital, guilt would rattle through me. I felt torn between being by Bobbie's side and Thomas's. Because of the fear of infection, I wasn't always allowed to bring him in. But whenever I did, Bobbie's eyes lit up.
‘Daddy will be home soon,' he promised our boy. 
Just two months after being diagnosed, he started trembling with pain. He was dosed up on morphine as a grave-faced consultant came to his bedside.
‘I'm afraid the cancer's spread to Bobbie's spinal fluid,' he explained. ‘It's incredibly rare, and we're desperately trying lumbar puncture treatment to reduce the cancer.
‘If it doesn't work, though, I'm afraid there's nothing more we can do,' he admitted.
Clasping my hands to my face, I knew what he was about to say... ‘If that happens, he'll only have about two weeks left to live,' he confirmed.
Two weeks? My blood ran cold. I'd imagined him playing footie with Thomas one day, holding my hand when we took him for his first day at school. 
I'd waited so long for Bobbie to come home - now he was being cruelly ripped away again.
‘What if Thomas never gets to knows his daddy?' I sobbed to my friends Emma and Caitlin, who'd rushed to the hospital.
‘He'll make it,' Emma soothed. As his treatment began, all I could do was pray for a miracle.
Just a few days later, I noticed the colour seep back into Bobbie's cheeks as he managed to sit up again. ‘His treatment‘s working,' the doctors confirmed. But the chemo meant he lost his hair. ‘I don't look like me any more,' he said sadly as he saw himself in a mirror.
‘You're still gorgeous bald,' I smiled.
Then, just nine months after we'd got that terrible diagnosis, he had another check-up. ‘Bobbie's spinal fluid is clear,' a consultant confirmed. ‘He's free of the cancer.' 
‘I can't believe it,' I sobbed, holding him close. ‘I'm never letting you go again.'
It was the best news we could have ever been told. We'd got our miracle. Against all the odds, Bobbie had come back from the brink of death.
Now, a year further on, he still needs regular check-ups, but we're focusing on the future - a bright one.
Most importantly, Bobbie and Thomas, now 18 months,
are inseparable. At long last, we're all together.
Kate Molle, 25, Fareham, Portsmouth