'I want to live my life': Ludlow couple plan wedding after terminal cancer diagnosis

Latvian national Martins, 29, had started his cancer battle in 2016, but was given the all-clear the following summer.

Martin was diagnosed with a rare parotid cancer, which affects the salivary gland, in 2016. It is rare that tumours there turn out to be cancerous.

But in June last year, just as life was getting back to normal, they were told by doctors at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham that his cancer had returned – and it was terminal.

“The whole way home we were in silence, what do you say? It was surreal. I just shut down,” says 26-year-old Hannah.

Now the couple are attempting to live their life together to the fullest, and have brought forward their wedding plans under the looming shadow of Martins’ diagnosis.

“Now my goal is the wedding,” he says. “When we got engaged we were looking at getting married in 2020, but after everything that has happened we were like ‘let’s do it in six months’. We don’t really know what is going to happen.

“I know it’s short, but if the worst happens I have lived a great life and done as much a possible.

“I sometimes get scared. Actually I think I was more scared back in 2016 when I first got diagnosed with cancer, I was 26 and I was just wondering what was going to happen. But if and when it happens, well, we had a great time.”

Martins is ready for the fight, he wants to live a long life, but he is also making the most of every day he has.

“There’s no chance I’ll give up,” he says with determination. “We enjoy just going for walks and just spending time together. Just doing something together makes things so much better. I don’t sit at home and sulk or cry about it. I want to live my life.

“There are a lot of bad sides, but you just need to find the good one.”

But he has already set into motion plans for a funeral. He would like for his body to be flown back to Latvia so he can be buried near his dad.

The couple have considered having children still, but are unsure about when the timing will be right for them.

“We have talked about kids and making a family,” says Martins. “People look at cancer as ‘this is the end’. But we look differently, we just do as normal people do. Get married and have kids if we can.”

“There’s more of a rush an urgency to those things,” adds Hannah. “Martins wants those things so you’ve just got to do it. We can’t just say wait until next year – what if we don’t have another year?”

He had been given the all-clear after what he calls a “gruesome” bout of surgery and radiotherapy in Birmingham, and the couple had started planning for their future together.

In May 2018 they booked a holiday to Spain, taking a break not only from their jobs at Fishmore Hall near their Ludlow home – Hannah also supervises in the restaurant there.

“All we wanted to do was enjoy walking down the beach and watch the sunset,” says Hannah.

The couple enjoyed that on their first day – but on day two, Martins started to feel pain in his chest and that night collapsed after coughing up blood.

He was rushed to hospital and after tests in Spain Martins decided to discharge himself against doctors wishes so he could get home to a hospital in the UK.

Trying to explain what had happened to Spanish doctors and understand what they were explaining proved a difficult task for the couple.

They flew into Birmingham International on a commercial flight and went straight to hospital with the scans from Spain.

“An x-ray in the Spanish A&E showed three massive tumours in my abdominal cavity and many more smaller tumours inside my left lung,” says Martins.

The cancer had spread and after weeks of tests the couple were told that Martins’ tumours were inoperable. Because of the rare nature of the cancer they were unsure what type of chemotherapy would work to slow the growth of the tumours.

“I decided immediately that I would like to try and battle the tumours to give me as much time as possible to spend with my family and fiancee,” he says.

Martins began to set himself goals. Firstly to get to New York again with Hannah in November and then to enjoy Christmas.

“It was a dream because we never thought we’d be able to travel again,” said Martins.

Martins was taken off chemotherapy and was put on a new type of pill from America. His hair has grown back along with his eyebrows and finger nails.

“We did a scan just before starting the tablets and then I’ll have scans every two months just to see if things stay stable,” he says. “There is a possibility that because it’s such an aggressive cancer the tumours might start growing quite fast. They [the tablets] might just not work.”

The cancer is so rare that he has undergone a painful biopsy to help research.

“It’s not for my own medical benefit, but for the 100,000 Genomes project which I hope will help advance medical care and treatment of future patients who might be in my position,” he says.

To spend time with Martins and Hannah you can get a sense of their delight in each other’s company. But behind the excitement of wedding planning that they are in the midst of a personal crisis and a time of uncertainty.

Most people at the age of 29 don’t have to consider their own mortality, but it’s something this young man has had to confront.

“It’s things you don’t expect to be doing, sorting out your affairs, making sure no bills go out from my accounts, that Hannah has access to all my passwords, but if you only have six months as a worst-case scenario then you just don’t know what’s next,” he says. “So you have to tick things off in order, you hope for the best but you have to be realistic.”