"I want to tell you about my husband Graeme.  Graeme is always writing things about me and telling everyone how lucky he is.  Well I want to tell you that I am the lucky one.

When I met Graeme I was not interested in meeting anyone.  I was quite happy on my own and had been for a good few years after a previous relationship ended. When I turned up at Walkabout that night I just wanted to chat to my friend, but she had other ideas.  I think she invited me to try and set me up with one of her boyfriends’ workmates (Graeme being one of them) and she pushed me into their direction so I would talk to one of them. She aimed wrong however, as I ended up next to Graeme (whom she didn’t get on with at the time).  I was ‘cold’ as Graeme puts it, as I really did not want to be chatted up. But Graeme just talked to me and even when I said I didn’t want a date he just carried on talking to me.  I really enjoyed listening to what he had to say and was so touched about how caring he was about the problems and suffering in the world.  I knew he was different from anyone I had spoken to before and I was intrigued.  I didn’t want the conversation to end and so I finally agreed to a date, even though I was adamant I didn’t want to date anyone for a long time.

After our first date I was hooked. It really scared me as I was happy on my own and the thought of someone coming into my life was frightening. I just knew Graeme was different and that I could really fall for him and I didn’t know if I was ready for that. However, after each date it became more and more natural and soon we both knew we were very serious about each-other. 

Graeme was quite angry with the world when I first met him, but gradually I noticed him changing to love the world and exactly the same change happened to me. We had found in each-other someone who understood us completely, someone who accepted us the way we were, someone who shared the same views on life.  We both love animals so much and our shared dream was to work hard for years to raise enough money to one day open a small sanctuary for animals.   

 We are both very independent people and so we lived in separate flats and had fairly separate lives for three years, but we would always have two or three ‘dates’ a week, which were the highlight of our week.  We would go to a pub and just talk and talk and talk.  We never ran out of something to say.  We loved having quality time together rather than just quantity.

 On Christmas Eve last year Graeme proposed at our favourite place -Beachy Head.  It was a total surprise although just before he asked me I sort of knew.  I was so happy and said yes straight away.  I didn’t have any hesitation.   We decided to arrange a wedding that was special to both. We booked the venue for April 2008, at Port Lympne (the Animal Park near Hythe). They have a beautiful mansion in their grounds which you hire for the day and all the money goes towards the animals, as it is a charity.  We were even going to have a mini safari as part of our wedding day. Everything was perfect. 

 When Graeme went to the Hospital in April this year, for a routine test on his liver our lives changed forever. I will never forget that day when they said that the scan showed Graeme either needed a liver transplant or it was cancer and that he must be admitted to hospital the next day.  We were in total shock, we were just expecting a routine appointment like all the others we had been to over the years.   We just went to the pub that afternoon and chatted and chatted about life and death and everything. Then Graeme went into hospital the next day and then began a succession of bad news. I felt so helpless seeing the man I love so ill and not being able to help him.  I constantly offered the doctors money (I pretended we were rich) in case they could offer him any treatments that weren’t normally available.   I’m sure you can imagine what I and his family were going through. It was so distressing not being able to help Graeme, seeing him in pain, seeing him trapped in a hospital liver ward for a month with all the old alcoholics, not being able to cuddle him to sleep, seeing his face when the doctors gave him horrible news. It was a terrible time, but Graeme needed us to be strong.  He was the only person that mattered. What he was going through was ten times worse than what we were going through.            

Graeme soon started to accept things and he became a much loved character on the ward.

He constantly helped patients and nurses, even the confused man next to him who was always trying to escape and harming himself in the process. I watched Graeme stop the ‘confused’ man from pulling his Catherta out time and time again, I watched Graeme comfort people who had received bad news and I watched him settle all the frightened new patients into the ward and lend them books etc to relieve their boredom and fear.  I was so, so proud of Graeme, he amazed me and everyone else with his strength.

The next few months involved lots of appointments hospital stays, going to Germany for an operation, chemo.  Graeme had to cope with so much.  He constantly had his hopes raised and then taken away so cruelly.  Everything was such a roller coaster emotionally and on top of this he had a lot of physical pain to endure.  Through all of this his attitude has been amazing.  He is so positive and happy and he makes it very easy for those around him.  He is not self pitying at all.  He hardly ever gets upset and he always counts his blessings by thinking about those worse off than him.

The last few months, even though they have been awfully medically, they have been so wonderful in other ways. We brought our wedding forward and got married and moved in together.  I cut down my hours to two days a week instead of five and so we have this beautiful quality time together which we spend talking, walking, cuddling, laughing.   I am really enjoying married life with Graeme and sharing a flat together.  I saw some people at a wedding last week who have known me since I was about nine and they said to me that I look happier than I have ever looked in my life.   That is because it is true.  Graeme makes me the happiest person alive and I hate it when people pity us.  We have such a unique and special experience that we are sharing.  We love each-other more than anyone I know and this illness has brought our relationship to new depths that most people will never know unless they are faced with what we have been faced with.

Graeme has changed my life forever. He has made me happy in myself, which will continue as long as I live. I know that I will not face hurt in the future, as nothing can ever hurt me as much as seeing what this illness is doing to my husband.

Graeme will be with me every day of my life as my husband, my protector, my best friend. I will never need anyone else and I will be happy and secure knowing he is there.

So I just want to conclude by saying that I feel so privileged and happy that I am the woman Graeme chose to marry.  I have found such a special love that so many people strive for. Nothing or no-one can ever take that away from me."