I met Pete 5 years ago after I had been going through a bad time following the death of my first husband – he invited me, my 5 young children and crazy dog for a holiday at his home in Wales. We all got on so well from the moment we met and shortly fell madly in love – the children loved him as much as I did – he was such a fun loving person – the following year we married and had the perfect family.
A few months after we married I became pregnant this was the icing on the cake – Pete was so excited so looking forward to seeing his own child grow up – however a month later we got the diagnosis that Pete had mesothelioma – our world fell apart.
We traced it back to when he’d worked with asbestos in the 70’s for just 6 weeks – he had been shoveling asbestos waste from pipe manufacture – often he would eat his sandwiches on the piles of waste – there had been no warnings from his employers and certainly no protection – at the time of diagnosis Pete was just 51 – he was given just 18 months to live – this all seemed too unfair.
We went down the usual paths for treatment – there was a hope that they could operate to remove the lung but they found that it had spread through the rib cage and was around the liver – chemo had no effect so after 2 cycles they gave up – all we had left was pain relief.
Pete was such a fighter and having our little boy Louie gave him even more to fight for – even when the pain was bad Louie could still bring a smile to Pete’s face – unfortunately Pete died on April 24th 2008 – 2 1/2 years after being diagnosed – although Louie won’t remember his dad – he will know him through our memories as being one of the kindest most loving dads anyone could wish for.
