Jean and Bob
Bob was 71 years old and had stage 4 cancer when he was referred to the hospice in May 2024, the community nursing team supported Bob and Jean until his death, at home, in June 2025.
Jean and Bob were childhood sweethearts who met when they were 16, and were married at 18. Bob was a trained mechanic and served in the army as a Tank Mechanic, with over nine years on a base in Germany, before returning to civilian life as a mechanic in Sussex. Jean worked full-time as a civilian in the army air corps while they were in Germany and they enjoyed a full social life on base, making many friends for life. When they returned to England, they settled down to family life in Uckfield with the arrival of their two children, Rory, now 37 and Helena, now 31.
Eight years ago Bob was diagnosed with bowel cancer, and had successful surgery. Then four years ago, around the time of their golden wedding anniversary, Bob started complaining of jaw and ear pain, and the doctors assumed it was a dental issue so referred him to a dentist, when this didn’t resolve the pain, they assumed an infection so gave him antibiotics. Six months later the pain got so bad that Jean took him to A&E at Haywards Heath Hospital. Here Jean tells their story:
Bob (or Rob to me), was one of those people that everyone liked, we had great friends in the neighbourhood, he had a group of mates that loved tinkering with engines as much as he did, and he loved a pint of Guinness. He even had his own glass named ‘Bob’s bucket’ at the Uckfield Club, where he was a trustee (and was affectionately known as Big Bad Bob)!
Rob was a strong man in spirit and body, but when I saw he was in so much pain, I knew that we needed to escalate the issue. The hospital referred us to Brighton on a fast track and we were seen very quickly. At the appointment in December 2022, a scan revealed stage 4 cancer at the base of his tongue and he immediately started a course of radiotherapy. He was really poorly at this point, but after several scans and biopsies in the following year, he was told in early 2024 the cancer had gone. One month later and it was back, they tried chemotherapy but it made his so unwell. They suggested they could remove the cancer but it would result in a voice box and parts of his neck being removed and Rob was adamant he didn’t want that, so we were told to expect him to live for no more than six months.
They didn’t count on Rob’s determination and grit, he hung on for a whole year more.
Last summer we visited the hospice and they helped explain how to monitor his medication. We talked through our options together and Rob was adamant he wanted to be at home so the Hospice Community Nursing team became our support crew. They would phone up every 7-14 days and check in with us. For me it was about having someone on the end of the phone whenever I needed to check something, and I found it invaluable to ask advice about his medication or just check in that symptoms he was displaying were normal. The big difference compared to the hospital was that we finally had some continuity, where we rarely saw the same face twice at hospital, everyone I spoke to at the hospice knew us both by name, knew all about Rob’s condition.
Rob was a good patient, very stoic and calm, his speech was sometimes distorted as he got more poorly, and so we used a whiteboard to communicate. My daughter, son and I took turns to be at home with him, and I took some leave from work and we just spent some precious time together. He mentioned wanting to see the sea, and so we took a road trip and visited Bexhill, I knew at the time that he must be getting worse because he didn’t even criticise my driving!
I feel so blessed that Rob was relatively well during this time, the day before he died he slowly walked up the stairs and had a shower, then lay down on the bed exhausted – I do wonder if he knew time was running out. I really believe Rob had ‘held on’ for a reason, we had been awaiting news on an operation date for our daughter, to have a benign brain tumour removed, and we found out that day.
To this day I don’t know how he had the strength to get up the stairs. The next morning I could see he was fading. Julie from the hospice came out to be with us, and he took his last breath with Rory, Helena, her partner Jake, our dog Ozzy and I by his side at home, just as he wanted.”
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