Dean’s story, told by his wife, Jo Stevenson Timini
Dean was my husband, kindred spirit, soul mate, and my very best friend. He was my sun and my life circled around him drawn by his contagious mischievous energy. We literally did everything together, as we had so many common interests, friends and did so for 28 brilliant years together.
I consider myself to be so very lucky that our paths crossed, and we met each other young at 20 and we grew up together. The attraction was instant, and I knew from the very first meeting, that he was my boy.
Growing up together, we enjoyed an amazing life full of adventures and travels, building our careers whilst supporting each other, surrounded by our beautiful, kindred Stevenson-Timini family and extended family and so many blessed friends, who we celebrated life events with for years.
Dean was honestly the most positive beautiful man, utterly different and utterly unique. He was always the life and soul of every gathering; I can still hear his laugh rippling round a room.
His mission every day was to make people feel fabulous – which he achieved every single day, working as a top hair stylist at Daniel Galvin, London.
Here he grew up with his clients, who came to see Dean, not just for a haircut – but to share experiences and passions in life. They would talk endlessly about the latest great restaurant, their fellow love of food, what had they been cooking, wine stories and vineyards, and just have a general giggle about life – they all adored Dean. He could lift anyone’s spirit – he was always the perfect tonic on a bad day to lift your soul. He just really made everyone feel really good, understood and very special, it was a true gift, and everyone loved him for it.
As a consequence, so many of his clients he had styled their hair for 20 plus years – so had seen all their life stories, dating, getting married, having children, their grief at sad times.
What always stood out for me were the days he would come home a little sad. I would ask him why – and it was always a cancer story that had deeply touched him. A client battling with hair loss – due to the devastating effects of chemo and the psychological effects this had.
Dean, for as long as I could remember had a persistent cough. We always put it down to his ongoing sinus challenges and didn’t really think much of it. It was always there. He also for as long as I can remember suffered from acid reflux – even in his 20’s and regularly took Gaviscon, Rennie and Omeprazole.
Had I known of the tireless work of Heartburn Cancer UK back then, I am quite positive the outcome would have been completely different. These are the two classic symptoms of oesophagus cancer.
Dean’s short cancer story started in 2019, he was coming up for his 48th Birthday and I noticed on an April holiday that he was struggling to drink orange juice and could no longer eat bananas – didn’t think anything of it – just thought it was a heartburn thing.
In early November of that same year, I started to notice a huge change in Dean – that happened so very quickly. It started with a stool that was black in colour which caused enough alarm to go to his GP.
He started to lose weight at a rapid pace, was constantly exhausted and having to stop and want to lie down.
He always had sooo much energy I just knew something awful was wrong.
It all seemed to happen at once and went at such a pace. He was fast tracked through for an endoscopy and colonoscopy at St Peters Chertsey. They found during the endoscopy what they described as a “ulcer on the oesophagus which was swabbed.
On the 12th of December we had the most heart stopping devastating news that the tests had come back and confirmed as cancerous. It was horrific, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t believe it.
Dean was then admitted for an emergency CT scan to see where the spread was and how bad and if it had got into the lymph nodes.
On the 17th of December we took the call we had been absolutely dreading. The odds – what were the odds? Having just lost one of our best friends, Jim, to cancer, we only knew too well the questions to ask. Where were the secondary’s? What stage is it? What is the life expectancy?
Dean’s diagnosis was stage 4 metastatic adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus, secondary spread to the stomach, with a life expectancy at best of up to a year – palliative care chemo treatment offered to improve quality of life. In other words, terminal Cancer.
I will never forget that day for the rest of my life. It was the 17th of December 2019 at 9.30am in the morning. We took that as a call in the car. Parked in a car park in Marylebone, as we were both going to work. We just sat in the car completely and utterly stunned.
Dean, throughout his diagnosis never spoke of his fears of his life expectancy.
He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to talk about after life, he just wanted to be positive and to make the most of every day.
So that is what we did. We decided to live for each day, to devote ourselves to each other and to make the most of each and every day.
To enjoy the simple pleasures of nature, birdsong, our garden, food (while he was still able to eat) and throw everything at the chemo, hoping for a miracle.
I read insatiably about everything diet wise I could do to help and read every book on stage 4 survivors and how they had cheated their diagnosis. I read about every alternative treatment available. Learnt about blood markers to see if the chemo was doing anything. We tried all sorts of alternative medicine and…then Covid broke out and then we found ourselves in lockdown. After a 10-month battle, Dean lost his fight and died at Guildford Hospital in an isolation room. I was with him ‘till the very end – and all I wanted him to know as we stared at each other all day – was that he was loved, so very loved and when he took his last breath, I held mine till the tears came and didn’t stop. He died at 4pm on the 16th of October 2020.
After Dean’s death – and as we were still in lockdown, I could only invite 30 people for his funeral. He had so many friends, family, clients, work family that would have wanted to send him off – that we had to organise everything on zoom. Arthur Mann, our best man at our wedding – found Heartburn Cancer UK, as was researching for a charity that we could give in lieu of flowers. This is how I met the lovely Fiona. We raised £5,000 for the charity from Deans donations. I really felt so very passionate about wanting to raise awareness of this stealth cancer, and when I returned to work after a short bereavement break – discussed with my Executive committee about having Heartburn Cancer UK as our nominated charity to continue to raise funds in honour of Dean and of one of our dear colleagues who lost his life from the same cancer. The partnership started in Spring 2021 when the hotel first opened after the pandemic and continues to this day.
I work for The Lanesborough in London. one of London’s most prestigious five-star hotels in the city. Since our partnership we have raised in total £46,000 towards raising awareness of this stealth killer. For every guest that walks through the door – we charge a nominal fee to go towards the charity which has helped enable HCUK to purchase a second mobile diagnostic unit. My bridesmaid Jane McGee ran the London Marathon 2022 in honour of Dean and for Heartburn Cancer UK.
In February 2024 we partnered with Heartburn Cancer UK during Oesophagus awareness month and had the mobile diagnostic unit at the front of the hotel to raise awareness during this special month. This campaign raised awareness of the disease in the hospitality sector and urge people with the, little known, symptoms to get checked with their GP. There were also number of tests available to those who were eligible for the Capsule Sponge test.
Association with HCUK:
It was Jo and Dean’s friend Arthur who found Heartburn Cancer UK when he was looking for a charity they could donate to, in lieu of flowers. Following an introduction with Fiona, Jo approached her Executive committee who kindly agreed to making us their nominated charity. With the sad similarities of Jo and our chair, Mimi – 20 years apart – we are delighted that Jo has agreed to become an HCUK Trustee.
