Cancer patient Steve is about to say ‘I do’ in final bucket list wish 

A Warrington man with terminal cancer will fulfil the last wish on his bucket list when he says ‘I do’ on Monday.

Steve Connolly, 55, is set to marry partner Mark in a local register office ceremony surrounded by family and friends.

He says: “When we exchange rings and say our vows, the dark thoughts of cancer will be the furthest thing from my mind, and I’ll feel only the joy and happiness of getting married.”

But he adds: “Having cancer does make me appreciate what we have and the promises we’ll make.

“Our wedding is the last thing on my bucket list and whatever time I have left we will spend together making memories. The wedding seals everything for us. It’s the missing piece in the jigsaw.”

Steve, who works full-time in a packaging factory and part-time for Morrisons in Widnes, was diagnosed with head and neck cancer in February 2022.

Considering himself a previously fit and healthy man, who was always active, the news came as a shock.

“I had a lump at the back of my throat and I never thought anything of it,” he explains, “but one day when I was driving to work I looked in the mirror at the back of mouth, and the lump that was there had turned into a hole.

“And that really frightened me.

“I went to the walk-in centre in Widnes who referred me to a doctor at Warrington Hospital, who then sent me to Clatterbridge. They knew it was cancer.”

Starting in March Steve began a rigorous course of radiotherapy, going every day for five weeks, Monday to Friday, and was given three doses of chemotherapy: “It was hard, but I had in mind the end game; it was working so I’d get through it,” he says.

In September he was given the ‘amazing news’ that he had beaten the cancer.

But in November 2022, after further checks, Steve got another call to say there was a small growth on his lung.

“The cancer had spread and this time it was terminal, stage three at that point. I was told the week before Christmas that there was nothing they could do other than try to slow it down which is what they’ve been trying to do ever since.

“The oncologist also told me the average time span for someone like me was 12 months, and that was a massive blow.  But I’m still here now…” and he plans to be here for longer.

“I have just finished five cycles of chemotherapy and I had a meeting with my oncologist at St Helens Hospital this week and he’s said he is going to move me onto a trial of immunotherapy which is mind-blowing. I had asked about it a while ago when the cancer was only in one lung – it’s now in both – and he told me that wasn’t possible because it was travelling and the immunotherapy wouldn’t work.

“Now, because the technology has changed even in the last five or six months, he will start it as soon as I get back from a holiday – my honeymoon!

“I asked how many doses, how long, and he said two years.  I honestly broke down in tears. But I told him how when I was given 12 months, I said I’d make it two years.

“Now he’s given me two years, I’ve told him I’ll fight for five.

“That’s why I keep working. That’s why I stay positive, with the help of family and friends, and the people I work with. They’re all on this journey with me.”

Since his cancer diagnosis more than two years ago Steve, who lives in Stockton Heath, has vowed never to be negative: “I decided I will really live my life now.

“I have always wanted to see the Northern Lights and so in January I flew to Norway and right up to the tip of the Arctic Circle, and I saw them from what’s supposed to be the best place in the world to see them.

“I got to go whale watching, and husky dog sledging, and I travelled around the Norwegian Fjords.”

Unwilling to give up and give in, Steve also vowed to raise money for cancer charities, like the supportive friends around him.

Former colleagues at Morrisons in St Helens, where Steve also worked – he’s had roles with the company across the region, many managerial – recently took part in Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life at Haydock Racecourse.

Steve himself did a skydive in aid of St Rocco’s Hospice in Warrington which has already supported him and will be there for him when he needs it.

The skydive on June 22, has so far raised £4,675, but it achieved even more than that.

“Me and my partner Mark, a teacher, have been together for 15 years, and about seven years ago I asked him to marry me, but he said it would never happen. After I did the skydive, we went into a nearby village for a coffee and he asked what I was going to do next. I said I’d find a mountain we could walk up.

“But he suggested I could plan a wedding – and he asked me to marry him.”

In only a few weeks everything has been organised for the wedding to take place at Warrington Register Office with a reception at The Stag Inn in Walton, Warrington, afterwards.

“It’s the last of the things on my bucket list, and the most important one,” smiles Steve. “And Mark knew how much it meant to me.

“He has given me more to look forward to. 

“I do have hard times – I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. Having terminal cancer is a bit like being on death row, you don’t know exactly when, but you know it’s coming.

“But I have always said I will die with cancer, the cancer is not going to end my life or define me – I will keep on living my life.

“I appreciate everything more now, the simple things like walks on the beach with our Cocker Spaniel Barney and, especially, getting married. Whatever future we have I will enjoy, and I’ll make the most of every minute of it.”

You can support Steve by donating to his Just Giving page HERE.

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