'Getting back to nature has helped me to heal'

When Karen and Ben Whybrow married in 2011 they were excited about their life together.

- MATTHEW BARBOUR

"Ben and I always had big plans for our future, how we'd give our kids experiences we'd never had and grab life with both hands," Karen says.

The couple had their daughter Georgina two years later.

"We felt simply blessed - and then when we found out we were expecting again and could complete our family, it was simply magical."

But just five years after they exchanged their vows, they received news that would shatter their family. Ben, who was just 38, was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer.

Karen was pregnant with their second child, Harriet.

"It just seemed so unfair, so cruel, like some horrific dream," Karen, now 46, recalls.

The building company manager was adamant he wouldn't let cancer win, refusing to write goodbye letters or bucket-lists, firmly telling Karen every day he was going nowhere.

DOWNHILL

"Ben never once entertained the idea the chemo wouldn't work and he tried his best to get on with normal life," she says. "He had his chemo every two weeks, and would feel awful for five to seven days, then go back to his old self briefly before being hit with the next wave of treatment."

Then a scan over Christmas 2016 showed that the tumour was growing back, fast. When Karen went into labour, Ben left intensive chemo to be with her as Harriet was born before returning to treatment.

But he continued to go downhill - chemo stopped working and radiotherapy didn't help, just causing pain and making him more frail.

In August of 2017, Karen said her final goodbyes in a hospice close to their home in Harlow, Essex.