BBC Countryfile presenter Adam Henson and his wife Charlie have opened up about their last-minute wedding after their world was shattered by a devastating cancer diagnosis.
BBC star Adam and his wife Charlie already have two children together, but the shock health battle pushed them to tie the knot. In his new book, Christmas on the Farm: Wintry Tales from a Life Spent Working with Animals, an extract from which has been published by The Telegraph, Adam recalls the moment the pair decided they should wed.
On the way back from hospital the couple were trying to absorb the heart-breaking news that Charlie had been diagnosed pancreatic cancer in spring 2021 following months of stomach problems. While in the car, heading back to their Cotswolds home, Charlie asked Adam something "very important".
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Charlie said: "I told Adam I wanted to get married. We had been together for many years and had never felt we needed to marry: for me, having children with Adam was our commitment to each other. A wedding had never been important. Now, suddenly, it was the most important thing in the world."
She added: "It’s ridiculous but I really, really wanted everyone to know how much I love Adam; most importantly, I wanted him to know. It was suddenly such a big thing."
Adam was still trying to process what they had just heard at the hospital, with the TV personality's first thought being how they would managed to pull a wedding together on top of everything that they would most likely have to cope with, reports GloucesterLive. But Charlie's mum and sisters organised the ceremony for them, booking the first date available at Stroud Registry Office - September 9.
Whilst the wedding was a great distraction, Adam said he later "completely broke down" when he told his Cotswold Farm Park business partner, Duncan Andrews, why he needed time off work. The farmer admitted that he had been trying to hold it together in front of Charlie, but saying the words aloud made him realise the "enormity of the situation".
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Charlie's stomach issues first started over Christmas 2020 when she had a "bad tummy" while just trying to go about her life, juggling caring for their family on their busy farm with work. But, despite cutting cheese and certain vegetables out of her diet, Charlie's condition did not improve into 2021 and she made a GP appointment that February.
Countryfile presenter Adam writes that Charlie had to wait three weeks for an appointment, having made a non-urgent one, and assumed that her symptoms would have cleared up by the time the appointment came around, but they hadn't.
By March, Charlie began to really worry, opening up to friends about her condition, which saw her have "regular diarrhoea" in addition to feeling "washed out and drained". But a colonoscopy and tests conducted by her GP didn't show anything unusual, until one final test revealed that Charlie had not been absorbing food properly, leading to her being prescribed with a drug called Creon.
When pancreatic cancer was mentioned, Charlie was reassured by her GP that it was "highly unlikely" that this was the cause of her problems, but arranged a scan just to be safe, which Charlie had to attend alone, without Adam, due to the Covid restrictions that were in place at the time. She said: "While I was waiting to go in, I was overcome by a terrible foreboding, a feeling of utter fear and dread.
"I was absolutely convinced there was something seriously wrong. I tried to ignore it, telling myself I was just nervous, but I think from that moment, deep down, I knew I was in trouble."
Charlie didn't get her results for around five weeks, during which time she had settled onto her medication and was going about her life as normal - walking the dogs, working, and walking miles most days. Adam, Charlie, and their two children - Ella and Alfie, then aged 23 and 19 - were "lulled into a false sense of security" as they assumed that "no news is good news".
Charlie received her results whilst Adam was working away in Scotland. "There was no preamble: it was pancreatic cancer," she said. "I was told the scan showed a 4.5cm growth on my pancreas, located in a difficult position and it was very serious. The GP asked if I had anyone with me at home and apologised that she had to discuss this over the phone. I felt I had been hit with a sledgehammer.
"I knew that this type of cancer had a very low survival rate – just five per cent. We also knew of a couple of people who had had it, and their disease had progressed very quickly from diagnosis. I decided not to ring Adam; he was working and what could he do?
"My mum lives five minutes away, and she and Pete, her partner of many years, came straight over. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without them, but I was in absolute hell. I couldn’t process it, it was too big to take in."
Charlie then had to book more appointments and tests, eventually telling Adam when he rang her from the airport to tell her he was on his way home, with the presenter then embarking on what felt like a "very long flight home". The pair were told at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital that it was definitely cancer, but there was a possibility that it was a neuroendocrine tumour, a rare, slow-growing type of cancer.
However, Adam and Charlie were told that only two percent of pancreatic cancer is neuroendocrine and, even if it was, the size and positioning of the tumour made it difficult to operate on. If it was not neuroendocrine, then all they could do was offer palliative care.
"We were both stunned," Charlie recalled. "It is hard to blame medical professionals who deal with life or death every day, but when they deliver a statement like that, so matter-of-factly, the effect is devastating."
After getting a scan and a biopsy, Charlie was told that her cancer was stage one and, although it was in a difficult place, the consultant was confident he could operate. "He was cautious, but optimistic," Charlie said.
The following day, the couple said their emotional goodbyes as Charlie went in for her Whipple procedure, as it is known, with Adam feeling "helpless" as he watched her walk through the doors of the hospital alone, with Covid restrictions banishing him from the foyer. The operation involved removing the wide part of the pancreas, the gall bladder and part of the duodenum.
Adam was informed that if anything went wrong during Charlie's operation, he would be summoned to the hospital immediately, so he was relieved when he received a call at 4.30pm to say it had gone well, and that his wife was "stable and in recovery".
Within two weeks of Charlie coming home, she was able to walk half a mile, which made her feel "in control again". "I remember going out one day when it was raining heavily, and it was like the most life-affirming thing I have ever done," she recalled. "I didn’t care about getting soaking wet – I was alive!"
Charlie's recovery continues, and she has to take Creon at every meal, in addition to blood thinners and supplements, with the family living from "one six-monthly scan to the next". Charlie said that having a scan is "terrifying", and she starts to fill with dread a couple of months beforehand.
By May of this year, Charlie had returned to work, spending two days per week on set as a location manager in the television industry. "It’s incredible to watch her get back to normal life; something which, at one point, we didn’t think would happen," Adam said.
He went on: "I sometimes get annoyed with Charlie for worrying about small things, but she’s quick to point out that life has to go on and we can’t always be defined by what she’s been through. Our experience means we both want to make the absolute most of life, say yes to things and make time for what’s important."
Adam added: "The whole experience was brutal. Watching her suffer was heart-breaking. But since then, we have made a point of doing lots of things together. Travel is something we both love and we’ve tried to fit in as much as possible, to Japan and elsewhere. And our Christmas in 2021 was the best of my life."
