Bride sticks two fingers up to cancer
Bride refused to give in to cancer
A BLUSHING bride with terminal cancer who has defied doctors to battle the illness for 18 months has married her fiance.
Jean Jamieson, 64, of Tudhoe, County Durham, was diagnosed with a brain tumour last year and was given a year to live last May.
Refusing to give in, she has fought the cancer and she and her long-term partner, Ian Jamieson, 64, tied the knot last month.
The emotional civil service saw family and staff gather at The James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough.
Mr Jamieson, a retired Durham Police inspector, said: “We’d been together for seven years and we’d talked about getting married and then Jean was diagnosed with the cancer.
“I went to visit her on Monday, October 15 and she proposed to me by writing ‘will you marry me’ on the back of a card.
“I had no hesitation in saying yes as we’d always wanted to get married. We decided to get married on the Friday and I had three days to get everything sorted.
“She wanted to pick her own ring, so I brought in the Argos catalogue and then I had to get the ring and arrange for special marriage licences.”
He added: “If she had not asked me to marry her then I would have asked her. The hospital staff were great and they decorated the ward for us and, although it was a rush, it was all worth it in the end.”
Mr Jamieson, of Meadow Green, was married to June when he first met Jean in the 1970s, when she was married to Gordon Young.
The families became friends and when Mr Jamieson divorced and Mr Young died they drifted apart – but a chance meeting brought them together.
Mr Jamieson met one of Mrs Jamieson’s relatives at a Rotary Club of Spennymoor event in 2006 and decided to contact her.
They planned to move in together, but then the former community nurse was diagnosed with cancer.
Between them the couple have four sons – Lee, Peter, Richard and Andrew – and grandchildren Chloe and Ethan.
Mrs Jamieson, who is now being treated in Sedgfield Community Hospital, County Durham, hopes to see the the newest member of her family – son Richard and girlfriend Michaela’s baby, who they plan to call Evie Young, when she is born in December.
Elizabeth Price, lead nurse for end-of-life care and bereavement at the hospital, said: “It’s very rare that we have a wedding on a ward.
“But when a wedding does go ahead the staff always pull out all the stops to make the room look nice and make the day extra special.”