Mother-of-one Nicolette, from Twickenham, died in November 2020, two weeks after being taken ill with a suspected migraine. Following surgery, the trained osteopath and business owner was discovered to have a glioblastoma. She was placed in a coma and never recovered. Her partner, Austen, is sharing her story to help raise awareness of a disease that made him a widower and left their daughter without a mum.
Here is Nicolette’s story, as told by her partner, Austen…
On 16th November 2020, Nicolette came home from her job at her osteopathy clinic with what we thought was a migraine. They weren’t uncommon for her considering how physical her job was. Normally she would be ok after sleeping it off. However, the next day, she was still suffering so she booked in for a treatment at her clinic, but that didn’t seem to help either.
The following day, despite still being in a lot of pain, she went into work and tried to carry on, treating her patients. She managed to see her first patient before she decided to call it a day and we arranged a GP appointment. It was still during COVID, so she had to have a telephone consultation in the early afternoon. She went back to bed and woke up for her GP call. As soon as she walked into the room, I noticed a drop on the left side of her face, and she was struggling to speak. I explained this to the GP, and they carried out all the tests for a stroke which came back negative. They said it could be a severe migraine and prescribed strong medication and told us if it wasn’t sorted within the hour then we were to go to A&E.
Our daughter, Isabella who was three at the time, was at nursery and Nicolette wanted to make sure she was picked up before we went to the hospital.
We called an ambulance, and Nicolette was blue-lighted to Charing Cross Hospital, as the paramedics believed that it was a stroke. It was when I heard that we were going to Charing Cross that I felt it had to be serious, as we lived very close to two other hospitals. Having just sorted childcare for Isabella, I was just about to leave to meet Nicolette at the hospital when I received a call from the staff there, who advised that they had carried out a CT scan.
They said that it was good news that there were no signs of a stroke, but they had found a large tumour on her brain.
I rushed to A&E and was allowed to see her briefly but wasn’t allowed to stay with her when she was transferred to the neuro ward, as they were following strict COVID guidelines. I spoke briefly with a neurosurgeon who gave me a brief on what would happen next, and then I was asked to leave.
Over the next couple of days, I kept trying to see her in the hospital and each time was asked to leave. We communicated by text as she was in too much pain to talk and it was at this point, I could tell she was getting worse as her texts were becoming muddled and full of typos, which wasn’t like her.
A few days later, staff at the hospital called and told me that I could visit Nicolette, and they asked me to take home some of her things as they expected her to remain in hospital for a while and she no longer needed them.
Nic, didn’t know I was coming, but when I arrived, she woke briefly and said two words to me: “you’re late” and then she fell back to sleep. For a second, I laughed as it was nice to be told off by her.
Whilst there I received a call from the neurosurgeon who was scheduled to carry out her operation the following morning, I expressed my concern that she didn’t look right, and I asked if a doctor could see her. At this point, we still didn’t know the type of tumour she had.
When I left the hospital, I had a call from the doctors who told me Nicolette had deteriorated to a point where they wanted to bring her operation, which was scheduled for 8am the following day, to that evening. However, there were already surgeries booked for that evening, so this didn’t happen. They explained that they wouldn’t start an operation in the middle of the night due to protocol, and they were very clear that if Nicolette is rushed to the operation theatre as an emergency this often carries more risk.
That night I went to bed very anxious, just hoping that she would be operated on as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, overnight, Nicolette took a turn for the worse and ended up being rushed to theatre at 6am.
The surgeon said that the operation went well, and they removed a golf-ball sized tumour which presented itself with ease to the surgeons, indicating it could only have been there for four-six weeks.
That didn’t seem like a huge amount of time, considering the size of the tumour.
She was put in a coma to aid recovery and the next day, when they tried to bring her round, the pressure in her brain spiked and so they chose to keep her in an induced coma. They said they would continue to attempt to bring her round, but each time they did, the same thing happened and so they would put her back to sleep.
On the Wednesday, they carried out an MRI scan which showed she had suffered a cerebral infarction, which they explained was a massive stroke. They told me it had caused irreparable damage to one side of her brain, resulting in paralysis down the left side of her body and becoming fully blind in one eye and partially blind in the other.
When Nicolette was pregnant with Isabella, we had both updated our wills to include our end of life wishes. We had discussed them at length, which at the time was strange as neither of us had expected to ever be in the position where we would action them. But at that point, with the catastrophic side effects of the mass stroke, I knew that I had to respect her wishes.
It was hard. I felt frustrated and angry, and at the time I wanted to believe that if she just had been seen quicker maybe we’d have been in a different position. No one knew exactly what had happened or why and I now understand that it is because of the complexity of this disease.
Doctors kept saying Nicolette was young, she was 41. They said she could still fight this disease, and they planned to try and get her out of the coma once again.
On the Wednesday, we were invited to meet the neurosurgeon to discuss Nicolette’s situation and I asked my cousin who is a doctor to call into the meeting. My sister was also with me but neither of us were able to decipher the medical terms doctors were using, which weren’t patient friendly. At the end of the meeting, I asked my cousin to get straight to the point and she told me it wasn’t good news. That’s when I found out Nicolette had a glioblastoma, and I was then allowed to see her again.
A few days later, I received a call from the doctor to confirm that they wanted to take her off the ventilator and they said that she could have visitors before they did so. I spoke with her mum and asked her to come to the hospital and I also called her dad and brother, who live in South Africa, and explained we would do a video call with them. It was all extremely difficult and emotional.
At first, I didn’t realise what taking her off the ventilator meant, and as the doctors came in, they invited me to stay for the evening and even overnight. A nurse came round and washed Nicolette’s hair and then took a painting of her hand and some locks of her hair for Isabella and it was at this point I became aware that she may possibly pass away that night.
Throughout the night her levels dropped, and it was explained to me that as they fall, she will slowly drift off, but in the early hours of the morning, she seemed to fight, and her levels improved.
The next morning, I was introduced to the palliative care nurse who informed me of what our options were. They could arrange for Nicolette to be taken home; we could move her to a hospice, or we could be moved to a private room. Having no experience of hospices and having no space in our home. I opted to remain in the hospital, while I investigated local hospices.
That night, I went back to hospital and sat with Nicolette, listening to some of our favourite music. We did a couple more video calls with her family and best friend in South Africa and it all felt a lot calmer.
Later that night as I sat by her bedside, holding her hand, I must have nodded off. I was awoken by the nurse who confirmed Nicolette had passed, suggesting that Nic had waited until I had gone to sleep so she could sneak away. Knowing Nicolette, that was probably true, she never really liked a fuss.
At 11:05pm on Monday 30th November, Nicolette died, just two weeks after she came home with a migraine.
I think back now, and it was just a horrible experience, everything happened so quickly, and with it occurring during COVID, I feel I was robbed of the opportunity to be there for her, and we were cheated of the chance to have a fair fight against this disease.
One minute, we were viewing houses where we planned to build a future together, the next, Nicolette was taken ill; suddenly, I was thrust into a world where the mother of my child was fighting for her life.
Not long after Nicolette had passed, charity campaigner and celebrity Tom Parker was in the news discussing his diagnosis and treatment for his glioblastoma and I suddenly became more aware of brain tumours.
I joined Facebook groups for fellow widowers affected by brain tumours and read stories of patients who had gone through radiotherapy, chemotherapy and other treatments. I was just so angry and confused. The more I heard other people’s stories, I just couldn’t understand how they had been diagnosed, sent home, planned surgery and treatments, when we had zero symptoms, yet our whole lives were turned upside down in just weeks.
I know it was wrong, but I felt so jealous that people had time to come to terms with this devasting disease, when for us it felt as quick as ripping off a plaster.
I know more now than I ever wish to know about the disease, and I can honestly say that I’ve never known anything to be as horrific or aggressive as a brain tumour.
This disease has left me as a widowed father-of-one. My daughter, Isabella, is Nicolette’s mini me and she is now eight years old. We have both supported each other to get to where we are today, we try to live with positivity, and we try and honour her mum every single day.
I’m sharing Nicolette’s story now as I feel ready to talk about what happened and I want to ensure that people remember her and the wonderful person that she was. After her passing, I decided to keep her clinic, Richmond Osteopaths, running in her memory and, as part of Brain Tumour Awareness Month, we are donating £2 from every treatment during this month, to Brain Tumour Research.
I’d love for there to one day be a cure for all types of brain tumours so that no one has to experience what we went through.
Austen Ham-Howes
March 2025
One in three people in the UK knows someone affected by a brain tumour. This disease is indiscriminate; it can affect anyone at any age. What’s more, brain tumours continue to kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer yet, to date, just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease since records began in 2002.
Brain Tumour Research is determined to change this.
If you have been touched by Nicolette’s story, you may like to make a donation via www.braintumourresearch.org/donate or leave a gift in your will via www.braintumourresearch.org/legacy
Together we will find a cure.