Guest Post: I Felt Like An Executioner At Mater Dei As I Tried To Save My Pregnant Wife From Tumour

You all know the routine that follows when you are wheeled into Mater Dei after you faint: all those questions, all those tests, all those non-committal answers from doctors until they get some sort of result.

After some hours, blood test results started indicating this may not actually be a minor case of an exhausted expectant mother.

We were told we would be spending the night at Mater Dei. I had heard stories of physically challenging pregnancies so we were just bracing ourselves to make sure she remains comfortable for the next seven or so months.

After two days at Mater Dei, Therese was feeling strong enough to go home, although further tests and scans would be required.

We were going back to Mater Dei for tests, scans and consultations almost every day until we received a call that a particular consultant surgeon wanted to speak to us urgently.

You can imagine the worry that engulfs you when you are given an urgent appointment for the next day. To cut a long story short, the next morning we were told that a tumour was detected during one of the ultrasounds.

In words that leave little room for interpretation, we understood that the tumour was most probably cancerous.

The good news was that it was at least very curable, through surgery. For any normal person this would have been a routine operation, but Therese was pregnant, and the surgeon suggested a joint consultation with the gynaecologist to determine the way forward.

We now had to announce the “good news” to the family, but we also had to reveal the ugly part too…

The mood in the room changed from a loud celebration to a sombre silence. I could sense the thought that was in everyone’s head. Now what? What’s next? The same thought was obviously in our heads too.

The day of the joint consultation arrived. While the gynae was doing routine pregnancy tests, the consultant surgeon dragged me to another quiet room because he needed to talk to me, “rasi w rasek”.

In a hushed voice, he told me that a surgery is “50-50” for pregnancy, but leaving the tumour fester for the duration of the pregnancy would only complicate matters for Therese.

He still recommended going for surgery, stating that while this pregnancy may be at risk, future pregnancies remain possible.

I still recall how eerie the whole experience felt… the doctor dragging me to another room, the hushed voice, the avoidance to utter certain words; it felt as though something criminal was happening.

The surgeon explained to me that by law, he has a duty to protect the pregnancy no matter what, but he felt the last word in this should be ours.

Then another feeling engulfed me. It crushed me, and every time I go back in time to this period in our lives it crushes me again.

Suddenly I felt as though the whole weight of the future of two persons rested squarely on my shoulders. I felt as if I am an executioner and that I have a death sentence to execute based on the decision that may need to be taken.

As we went back to the room for the rest of the joint-consultation I could hear the gynecologist tell my wife how she has a very healthy pregnancy and all is normal. The executioner feeling kicked in again.

This was a pregnancy we both very much longed for. It took us months to get pregnant. The gynecologist recommended us to continue running frequent tests on Therese but postpone any further treatment until the baby was born.

Therese’s mind seemed set; that is what we are going to do! Probably it is the maternal instinct that was talking. Maybe she was unaware of the consequences.

We discussed this for days on end, throughout which I listened over and over again to the baby’s heartbeat I had recorded during a gynae visit.

I used to secretly hold Therese’s wrist to feel her pulse. As ugly and petrifying as it may sound, in my mind I was unknowingly thinking… do I risk the heartbeat I am feeling with my hand or do I risk that other heartbeat which I can’t yet feel but which I already love immensely?

I was conflicted, I prayed, I went on long walks alone, I talked and reasoned it out with God. I was, and still am, sure God would not punish me for doing what I believed was right.

Therese and I couldn’t agree on the right way forward.

I don’t really believe in the cliché of miracles that are taught to us but I do believe that the God I believe in speaks to us in subtle yet convincing messages, so when Therese suddenly told me she wants to go for the operation I was sure it was God giving us His approval.

So on Monday 12th December 2015, the eve of a public holiday in a very Christmassy jolly period, we drove to Mater Dei for Therese to be admitted for surgery.

My wife never hugged me as tightly as she did that day, not even when we got engaged, not even on out wedding day, not even when we discovered we were expecting. The image of my wife holding her tummy and being wheeled into the operating theatre still brings out strong emotions to this very day.

That same image, on that particular day, re-triggered the executioner feeling I explained earlier. I spent hours waiting for the operation to be concluded sitting on those blue waiting area chairs at Mater Dei, listening to the heartbeat recording and scrolling through the ultrasound images I had on my phone.

Then I got the news, the news I was hoping for. The operation is over, the tumour was removed. Therese is fine and the baby survives!

I was flooded with a massive sense of relief. I re-lived all the emotions of that magical moment when we discovered we were expecting, but a million times stronger! Post-operative recovery went smooth and Therese was released to continue her recovery at home.

However, the episode was far from over. When the lab results came out, it was confirmed that the tumour was cancerous and further treatment would be required. Another consultation followed and oral chemotherapy was recommended as it was effective and generally safe in the second trimester.

Still, the risk to the pregnancy was not insignificant. Once again we were treated with that hush hush experience that I had experienced, but this time Therese was with me. The dilemma re-occurred – What do we do? Should we wait or go ahead? We decided to go ahead with the treatment.

Fast forward to today, Therese is cancer free, our child is six years old and means the world to us.

But why did I decide to write all this?

I wish I had the courage to speak up in public but the emotions of the experience and the fear of a judgmental society hold me back.

You can however understand the emotional rollercoaster Therese and I experienced last summer when we read the heartbreaking story of Andrea Prudente.

I knew for a fact one feeling that her partner had at the time. His partner was pregnant with a baby they both were ecstatic about, yet they both knew it was going to be lost.

The delay and refusal of treatment would have definitely made him feel a yearning for something he will not have… that is almost the same feeling I had when I used to listen to the heartbeat recording on my phone, yearning for something that I may have to lose.

You can also understand the hurt we felt this weekend when a recent acquaintance of ours, probably oblivious of our very personal story, forwarded us one of the many ongoing message chains on WhatsApp to sign a petition against the legal amendments the government is suggesting to protect expectant mothers and medical professionals alike in case that a medical treatment results in a termination of a pregnancy.

How can anyone with probably no first-hand experience talk against amendments which are meant to avoid the experience we went through? They probably never experienced the executioner feeling I felt.

They probably never experienced the criminal-like hush-hush experience we went through. We may have been lucky in finding a medical professional that was open minded, but without these legal amendments, others may not be as lucky as we are. It is beyond inhumane and beyond insensitive to simply oppose these legal amendments simply for political convenience.

* Therese is a fictional name to hide our true identity