Mark Causey

In 2022 Mark and I sold our house and put our furniture into storage. We packed the car and drove off on a new adventure, from Suffolk to Wales. The start of a happier, more relaxed chapter in our lives with time to do the things we wanted to do. Our daughters Rhiannon and Eyr were now adults, and it was an opportunity for us to live at a slower pace.  

Mark had worked long hours for decades, commuting from Suffolk to London every day, and we were ready to enjoy the peace of the countryside. First we rented a tiny mid terraced skate miners cottage in Mid Wales, where we happily worked together on our laptops. Every day we made time during our lunch breaks for walks up the hills or to the estuary to try to spot the ospreys. We house hunted each weekend.  

Almost a year later we found our dream home in Pembrokeshire. Mark retired in Christmas 2023, from his job as a building services engineer to enjoy the DIY, local gym and the wealth of recreation our new home offered. Sadly, we only lived there for just 8 very happy months before everything changed.  

In early May 2024, my mother was transferred from hospital to a care home, Mark was my rock, first to offer to help move Mum’s favourite belongings into her new room ready for this new chapter in her life. The next day Mark drove home to do some DIY at our house, whilst I stayed at my mothers for a while longer, just to be close enough to visit daily whilst she settled into her new room. We’d made arrangements on the Monday morning for Mark to return on Friday to drive me home to spend the weekend together. When I tried to contact him on Friday, I couldn’t reach him by phone. I had a gut feeling something was very wrong. 

I called the police and requested a welfare check. When they forced entry into the house, they found Mark collapsed on the bathroom floor. He had been there alone and unable to call for help or even get water for four days. The police called me and said they were calling an ambulance, but it took 12 hours to arrive. I raced home to be with him. When I arrived home Mark, was parched, so we offered him water, just enough to slowly quench his thirst without giving too much too soon. 

When the paramedics finally arrived, Mark was dehydrated, weak, and confused. He was taken to Withybush General Hospital, where a CT scan showed lesions on his brain.

Mark was given an MRI, and after a lot of pushing for answers, a meeting was arranged where the sister and specialists very reluctantly confirmed that Mark had multifocal glioblastoma, multiple tumours that had spread a bit like a spiders web across parts of his brain.  

The good news was that Mark’s kidneys, traumatised by the dehydration following four days without water started to recover. Doctors prescribed steroids, which helped reduce the swelling in his brain, which in turn relieved some of the debilitating symptoms. We were told Mark could go home and would later need to be transferred to a major hospital in Cardiff, for a biopsy in order to confirm the diagnosis of the glioblastoma so that the appropriate treatment could begin. 

For a while, the steroids helped, Mark started talking again and regained the ability to move his arm and leg, he was unstoppable and determined to relearn how to walk. He began walking a little further each day.    

Mark was discharged and supported by the community palliative care team and Paul Satori, a local hospice charity.  Following discharge, Mark was given a specialist outpatient clinic at Singleton Hospital in Swansea, where doctors told us that the biopsy and surgery we’d been told to expect by the Withibush team was not possible as the cancer was already too far advanced. 

The doctor said that Mark had between eight and twelve weeks left to live. I will never forget those words; our world came to a standstill.

Mark refused to give up. He was determined to get fit by walking a little more each day, first to the kitchen, then to the garden gate. He was proud of his progress and even walked the mile and a half to either Carew Castle or to Creswell Quey, our local pub.  

The Swansea consultant warned us that despite these amazing improvements there was very little hope, the cancer was already too advanced and widespread to attempt surgery or radiotherapy. 

To give Mark more time he was offered chemotherapy treatment in the hope that it would slow the growth of the multiple tumours. But this came with a caveat that without a biopsy, doctors had no idea whether chemotherapy would be successful. We hoped and prayed it would give Mark a better quality of life and time to make memories. 

Mark and I were not prepared to give up. Having trained in London and spent much of my career with close links to Addenbrokes hospital in Cambridge, the frustrating lack of treatment options in West Wales felt third world in comparison to what my NHS career had lead me to expect. We both believed there must be some treatment available in the big teaching hospitals, so we set out to research options, leaving no stone unturned. 

We were devastated and desperate. We knew it was hopeless, but didn’t give up. We tried to follow the doctors advice and make every moment count.

Our internet research led us to a new private treatment in London called hyperthermic therapy. This was one of the few cutting edge treatments that didn’t require surgery. It involves using heat to target and kill tumour cells. We paid for the consultation and were preparing for his first treatment, but days before, Mark collapsed for the second time. This setback heartbreakingly meant that Mark no longer met the criteria required to receive the new treatment. The treatment had to run simultaneously with his next round of chemotherapy and required Mark to be able to walk. Sadly, Mark never walked again. 

Hopes were further dashed when we were told that the MRI showed the first two chemo cycles had been totally ineffective. The tumour had rapidly spread to further parts of Mark’s brain with the original lesions doubling in size. There would be no more treatment, neither locally nor privately. This was a very low moment for both of us. 

Mark did not want to end his days in a hospital, so once stable following his second blackout, his doctors agreed for him to return home where I could look after him. This was supported by Paul Satori hospice and NHS carers who increased their support as Mark’s needs grew. They were incredible, providing practical support such as washing and dressing Mark. They made tea, even did things like peel potatoes so I could spend more time with him. They took us to the polling station so we could vote, and also brought us great comfort and strength emotionally. They provided a hospital bed and set it in the living room so that Mark could watch the birds on the bird feeder and see the badgers that visit our patio each evening for peanuts. They even helped Mark get out into the garden so he could enjoy the sunshine and nature. 

Pembrokeshire also has an amazing mobility service run by volunteers. This life changing charity allows people to hire out wheelchair adapted vehicles, with or without volunteer drivers. This enabled Mark and I to have quality time out together such as lunch at a garden centre and visit a nature reserve after he became wheelchair bound. Those simple but very precious moments meant the world to us. 

Before developing this very aggressive rapid onset cancer, Mark was fit and strong, a marathon runner and motorbike enthusiast. Watching him deteriorate so quickly was heart breaking. 

Mark didn't want to talk about dying and he bravely fought to the end.  

We were warned that as the spread of cancer was so unpredictable, we wouldn’t know what function would fail next until it happened, but eventually the cancer would impact a vital brain function. We were told to expect personality changes. Fortunately for Mark, he became more mellow, less anxious with a childlike curiosity, as if seeing the world for the first time. I’ve a special memory of us coming across a baby grass snake, and Mark watching the little creature with childlike wonder. 

Mark died in September 2024, just 19 weeks after his first symptom.  

I held his hand until his last breath. Our daughters, Rhiannon and Eir, and his favourite sister Nadine stayed with us at his bedside.  

We played video clips, happy moments such as the sound of Mark starting his cherished motorbike. Amazingly, just as Mark died, an aurora appeared in the sky as if to light his way. We opened the patio doors, and for the first time heard owls hooting in the trees and even the badgers chose that moment to come close to the house as if saying goodbye.  

Marks funeral was incredible, more than 100 bikers followed his motorcycle hearse on a 40 minute ride around South Pembrokeshire, down to the sea and then back through the lanes to the crematorium. This was Marks last ride. It was exactly what he would have wanted, and I will be forever grateful to the biker community for the gift of comfort and solidarity they brought us on the saddest of days.