In this searingly honest and moving account, published during Glioblastoma Awareness Week, Georgie English lays bare what it’s like watching the love of her life being taken from her by brain cancer…
Georgie shares her experience...
Max is my best friend. My partner in everything. We’ve been inseparable for nearly seven years. We met at 18, barely even adults, and quickly fell in love – laughing through life, planning our future, growing together.
But that world shattered when Max was diagnosed with a high-grade glioma just over 12 months ago, at 24 years old. This type of brain tumour we’d never heard of before suddenly became our entire reality. Everything changed. We’ve adapted, made space for fear and grief and changed our priorities, slowing down in our lives together, ensuring we are present in everything we do.
You can read about Max’s diagnosis here.
This piece is for those who care for another with a brain tumour, no matter the grade or type of tumour.
In recent weeks, Max has deteriorated quickly, losing his ability to speak clearly, and his sentences are often muddled. I know him so well, which means I’m able to decipher the riddles in which he speaks.
But people rarely talk about what it’s like to witness that deterioration and the effect it has on the people who love them most. The part where you sit beside the person you love more than anything in the world and ask yourself: is this a side effect? Is it the medication? Is this who he is now? Or… is this the disease, taking more of him?
People ask me “How are you doing?” And I know they mean well, but it’s too much for me to answer truthfully; I don’t even know how to begin, so I just say that it’s tough and I’m doing okay.
Throughout Max’s diagnosis, I have navigated working part- and full-time whilst spending time with Max, and this has come with huge elements of guilt. Guilt for not being able to spend enough time with Max and guilt for not always being there for my team. I commute to work on the train, sit at my desk, watch people continue as normal while my entire future crumbles away before me. It’s hugely isolating and has really put things into perspective for me. What is truly urgent? What should I allow myself to get stressed over? I continued to work to allow myself some control and to reassure myself, in a strange way, that my whole life is not falling apart, ‘just’ my identity and our vision for the future.
Because of the progression of Max’s disease, I’m not just his best friend and his fiancée, I’m also his carer. I manage his medication, his schedule, his messages. I sleep beside him and often I wake every few hours to check he’s okay… to check that he’s still with me. I watch him battle frustration, sadness, and confusion. I navigate conversations that no couples our age should ever have to face – wills, power of attorney, memory loss, funeral arrangements, and what comes next.
And all the while, I’m grieving. Grieving for the life we had. For the man who used to hold me through my bad days. For the plans we had made for our future together. And for the version of Max who, even though I’m still his whole world, isn’t quite able to love me the way he always did. There’s a loneliness in that that’s hard to put into words.
Max gets up every day and is the bravest fighter; he inspires me in every possible way and others recognise his strength and fighting spirit. People can see the love we have and it’s still burning bright. But for those in a similar position, you will know the feeling that, behind closed doors, we live in the quiet ache of missing someone who’s still right next to you.
I keep hoping this is temporary, and that uncertainty is one of the cruellest parts of the brain tumour; watching the person you love disappear in tiny pieces, bit by bit, without warning. Max still has his cheeky sense of humour and gorgeous smile, but I fear the day that I never get to see it again.
Despite it all, we keep going. We keep fighting. We speak out to raise awareness, because this disease is so underfunded, so misunderstood, and so devastating. And we continue to post on Instagram because Max still has so much to say. We’ve clung to every shred of hope, exploring trial opportunities, new treatments, anything that might give us more time.
Loving Max and being his best friend is the greatest gift of my life. Even now. Especially now. Our love has deepened in ways I never expected through the hardest, most heart-wrenching moments. There’s a kind of love that stays, no matter what. It holds steady when everything else falls away.
And that’s what I want people to understand: brain tumours don’t just take one life. They ripple through families, relationships, futures. They rewrite everything.
But it doesn’t get to take our love.
Forever and always, Max.