A woman who moved to Lancashire following the death of her husband has spoken about how her "whole world fell apart" when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Karen James, 40, met her husband Paul in student halls at Aberystwyth University, where she studied biology and he was training to be an accountant. The couple wanted to have kids, but when this wasn't possible, they decided to go travelling.
In 2018, just before a holiday to Venice - where they almost toppled off a gondola into the canal - Paul started suffering headaches like a "sinus infection". The headaches continued, but Paul, who had "a very strong pain threshold", dismissed the pain and continued "going about his everyday life as normal", the ECHO reports.
Karen said: "He was strong, he wasn't overweight, so we didn't think it was more serious. We just did the usual thing. At the time it wasn't going, I started to think, 'What's causing these headaches?', but I personally didn't think of a brain tumour."
After Paul collapsed at home one morning, he was rushed to A&E and in April 2018 he was diagnosed with a butterfly glioblastoma, a rare brain tumour. Few people survive it for more than two years, even with treatment. Paul's tumour was 6cm, and end of life care was the only option. Karen's "world fell apart" when Paul died that November, just a month after he turned 37. Karen said: "One minute we were walking around like normal, and then next minute, the only way to describe it is like a bulldozer has just gone through your life."
Almost as soon as Paul had died, Karen, now living on her own for the first time ever, had to deal with a mountain of paperwork, like registering Paul's death and changing the names on utility bills, phone bills and council tax bills, on top of planning a funeral. Karen felt "lost" mid the "blur" of that period.
She said: "Just before Paul passed away, I literally googled 'how to cope when your husband dies young', because I didn't have a clue. My whole life was Paul, I met him when I was 18, and I just didn't know where to start. Then that's where WAY came up."
With more than 4,500 members across the UK, Widowed and Young (WAY) is the only national charity for people aged under 50 when their partner died. The charity, which is marking National Grief Awareness Week from December 2 to 8, offers peer-to-peer support, social events like camping and picnics, and a helpline offering free counselling.
It also gives people practical support with all the admin Karen faced, and with accessing bereavement payments from the government, which Karen hadn't realised she was entitled to. Karen already had "a fantastic support network" of family and friends, but she needed a group of people who'd experienced that kind of loss themselves to feel properly understood. She found that in WAY.
Karen, who moved to Ormskirk after Paul's death, said: "I've got so much love for this charity, because I'm not sure I'd be where I am today if it wasn't for them, which sounds quite dramatic, but my whole world had just tumbled and I was lost, and the person who I'd normally go to when I have a big, significant life event - my husband - all of a sudden he was gone."
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