A dad has had to plan a wedding and a funeral in the space of a week after his wife tragically died five days after exchanging their vows.
Dave McLoughlin married Michelle Crowe, his partner of almost 19 years, at the hospital chapel just five days before she lost her battle with breast cancer.
Michelle, 33, was diagnosed with breast cancer last September and underwent a mastectomy on Valentine’s Day of this year.
However her cancer came back ‘with a vengeance’ in March and with help of staff at University Hospital Limerick she walked down the aisle to marry Dave, 35, on March 20.
Sadly she lost her fight with cancer on March 25 and now Dave has been left to raise their two children, 13-year-old Cillian and 14-month-old Oisin, alone.
The couple met when they were aged just 16 and 17, and Dave says he still puts his hand out for Michelle to hold in the car.
He proposed in 2016 but family tragedies including the loss of Dave’s mother and both of Michelle’s parents delayed their wedding plans.
Dave, from Tipperary in Ireland, said: ‘Everybody who met her fell in love with her.
‘She’s really small but really tough. She’s unassuming.
‘No matter how many times she gets knocked down, she gets back up. She was the happiest person you have ever met.
‘The pain gets worse and worse. I’m in the car and I hold my hand out for her and call out for a coffee.
‘I’ll never look at anyone in the same way. She was one-in-a-million. I’m here for the boys.’
Michelle found a lump on her breast in July 2022, not long after the birth of their second son, Oisin, in January.
After visiting her GP in September she was told she had an 8cm tumour and started chemotherapy.
When that didn’t work she had a mastectomy on February 14 of this year and thought she was ‘clean as a whistle’ – but a few weeks later she started experiencing stomach pain, and discovered the cancer had spread to her liver.
Dave said: ‘The surgery went well. We got told – plan away for your summer.
‘I remember walking in and she was looked stone cold dead and ashy. It came back with a vengeance.
‘I was falling apart. Michelle was still trying to be upbeat.
‘We both knew what this meant but we didn’t want to talk about it.
‘We never really needed to have a final conversation. We were so in sync.
‘A nurse asked me “do you want to get married?”, she said we could get married on the ward.
‘She made it her mission to walk down the aisle. She looked absolutely gorgeous.
‘I want to thank the nurses and staff.
‘It’s not how we pictured our wedding night, but they made it just as special.’
During the wedding at the hospital’s chapel the couple’s favourite songs, including Somewhere Over The Rainbow by WHO, were played.
Staff hung LED lights around Michelle’s hospital room and left them non-alcoholic wine.
The family held a wake for Michelle the following Monday which saw the village turn pink for her – including some people dyeing and shaving their heads.
Dave said: ‘It was the most beautiful thing I’ve seen.
‘Her favourite thing to do was sit in the garden at the firepit and sit out and listen to songs into the early hours.
‘I’ve not listened to a song since. She loved music. She loved our kids more than anything. She put everybody ahead of herself.’
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