A London lawyer and former RAF officer has penned a poignant account of her grief after her husband, a doctor, delayed seeking medical help for stomach pains and tragically died just weeks after a rare cancer diagnosis.
Thelma Ainsworth, 50, describes her husband Jonathan, 59, as a “fit and healthy” doctor and avid runner who was “always slim and always training”.
Despite his medical background, Jonathan delayed seeking advice when he began experiencing stomach pain in 2019. By October of that year, he received the devastating diagnosis of bile duct cancer and passed away just three weeks later.
Left a widow and single mother to two young sons, Dominic, now 12, and Richard, eight, Thelma admits she “should have cracked” under the immense pressure. Instead, she tapped into her “inner animal in order to survive” the ordeal.
This “harsh and challenging” experience inspired Thelma to write I Am A Wolf Tonight, the first instalment in her Surviving Badly series. The book delves into the raw realities of cancer loss and the complexities of grief.
She hopes sharing her story will encourage others experiencing symptoms to get “checked out as soon as possible”.
“Jonathan, even though he was a doctor, he didn’t get checked immediately, he waited until it was too late,” Thelma said.
“(The book) is about perseverance – how much can you take? How do we carry on when we’re dealing with our own internal trauma and external trauma? How do we keep all the balls in the air?
“I developed this harsh persona where I was just driving through life – and that’s where the title, I Am A Wolf Tonight, comes from.
“I had to tap into my inner wolf in order to deal with all these challenges.”
After graduating from the University of Cambridge, working as a lawyer and joining the RAF, Thelma met her husband, Jonathan, an “intelligent and talented” doctor, through a lonely hearts advertisement in The Guardian newspaper.
The couple married in March 2011 before having their two children, Dominic and Richard.
In 2019, once Thelma had finished a decade working with the RAF, HIV and infectious diseases specialist Jonathan started complaining of stomach pain – but did not seek further medical advice for several months.
As he lost weight and the pain persisted, however, he spoke to another doctor, who referred him for a scan as his liver appeared inflamed.
While waiting for the referral, Thelma said Jonathan decided to do his own bloods – and this led to his “shocking” bile duct cancer diagnosis in October that year.
“He was a doctor, so he decided to do his own bloods, and then one day he came back home and said it wasn’t right,” Thelma explained.
“So, he went off to St Mary’s Hospital and they said that he had cancer – and then, three weeks later, he was gone.
“It turned out to be bile duct cancer, which is very rare, and it had spread everywhere.”
The NHS says bile duct cancer may not have any symptoms, or they can be hard to spot, and this was the case for Jonathan.
According to Liver Cancer UK, about 2,200 people in England are diagnosed with bile duct cancer every year.
Thelma said her husband’s symptoms “presented very late” and they never suspected it could be cancer.
“It was more advanced than we could possibly imagine … we were always five steps behind what was going on,” Thelma said.
“Go get yourself checked out.”
To find out more about Thelma’s book, visit: mybook.to/IAmAWolfTonight.