Ever since Alexander arrived, Andrea had been sluggish and dehydrated.In February, however, Andrea developed
There were so many blood tests, she complained, that she felt like a pin cushion. On one occasion, herConsultant told us we were not prolonging her life, we were only prolonging her death... Between us, Andrea’s family and I would make sure there was someone there throughout visiting hours. I would generally head over in the mid-afternoon and stay until the end of visiting hours, relieving my in-laws from babysitting duty around 9pm so they could get the train back to Hounslow, in West London.
She was both brilliantly accomplished — winning a national youth playwriting competition and having a poem published on the London Underground — and relentlessly modest, feeling intimidated by all the public-school types she found at Oxford. She worked for many years in financial PR, before moving to Barclays bank.
As conversations became increasingly one-sided, I started reading aloud to her. The doctors told us, as sensitively as they could, that her chances of surviving until transplant were bleak. But it still felt like we had more time.On June 23, my birthday, she gave me a shakily written card apologising for testing the “in sickness and in health” part of our vows so much, and looking forward to better days to come.
I called Andrea’s family and asked them to meet me at the hospital: I was too weak to have that conversation alone. Later that morning, we spoke to the consultant. He gently explained that they were simply having to do too much to support her — that too many organs had failed. We were now prolonging her death rather than her life.
Having started with a target of £25,000, we are now hoping to raise £100,000 — and are halfway there.Robert wants something good to come out of his wife's death - so he set up a fundraiser for research into autoimmune liver disease in Andrea's name