A widow says she has "survivor's guilt" after her husband died of cancer while she was undergoing chemotherapy which helped save her life.<br /><br />Shona Maclaren, 34, was diagnosed with cervical cancer after bleeding which she said doctors dismissed as postpartum symptoms.<br /><br />But as she underwent treatment, husband William, 41, was diagnosed with advanced stage four bowel cancer.<br /><br />And just nine days later he died in a hospice on what would have been Shona's last chemotherapy session of her first of two stretches of the treatment.<br /><br />William had been suffering abdominal pain and inflammation, but thought it was due to his pre-existing ulcerative colitis. <br /><br />But a test just days before he died revealed he actually also had bowel cancer.<br /><br />Mum Shona is now in remission and survivor’s guilt about why she was “picked” to survive - and worried about what she'll tell her kids Thea, six, and Mason, two.<br /><br />Accountant Shona, from Stevenson, Ayrshire, Scotland, said: "He was in and out of consciousness and I talked to him that whole day he died.<br /><br />“I don't know if he heard me. I hope he did because I hadn’t had a chance to tell him that my treatment was working.<br /><br />“This is where the survivor's guilt comes in. I can't sit here and tell you ‘oh my treatment is working, but you’re dying.’<br /><br />“It’s heart-breaking and I don’t think that it will ever not be heart-breaking.<br /><br />“When Thea and Mason get older it's going to be tough to try and explain, ‘why did Mummy live and Daddy die?’ - and I'll never be able to answer that.<br /><br />“Nobody saw this happening as fast as it did. <br /><br />"That’s just one thing you’re never guaranteed is time. It angers me that I got a chance to fight and he never even got a chance to start.”<br /><br />Shona’s first symptoms were abnormal vaginal bleeding in the form of blood clots when she had been going to the toilet, and she became anaemic.<br /><br />She believes her symptoms were “downplayed” by doctors due to being five months postpartum.<br /><br />“I had high blood pressure during my pregnancy so I contacted my doctor and one of the things that I asked him was, ‘Is this normal?’ - because I didn't have this with my first born," she said.<br /><br />“He said 'that will just be your body normalising after birth'.<br /><br />“I was on the phone with the doctor and I remember it so vividly, there was blood just pouring out of me. <br /><br />“I was shouting down the phone saying: ‘If I was a man and I was bleeding this much you would be doing something about it - this is not normal!”<br /><br />She had a colposcopy and a biopsy, and two weeks later was diagnosed with stage 2B cervical cancer, on May 20, 2022.<br /><br />She began chemotherapy on June 30 2022 and William and Thea supported her by shaving off her hair.<br /><br />“The first day at chemo was really emotional - going in and being the youngest person in the ward," she said.<br /><br />“It still didn't feel real. I just burst into tears when they started. For all the nurses it's something they deal with all day everyday. <br /><br />“l was very much in denial all the time.
