David Cameron And Wife Reveal How Caring For Their Handicapped Son Almost Destroyed Their Marriage

British prime minister, David Cameron and wife, Samantha in a tell all interview with Mail Online have revealed how their marriage almost did not survive under the pressures of caring for their disabled son.

Mail Online reports;

In an intensely personal interview, he revealed: ‘We weren’t falling out with each other, but we were falling apart just coping with the nights and everything.’

His comments were echoed by his wife who, in a separate interview, said the stresses of looking after Ivan pushed their relationship close to ‘breaking point’.
In a tearful interview, Mrs Cameron spoke for the first time of the ‘nightmare’ of learning that their first child had a rare disorder which left him needing round-the-clock care.

Within a year, she said, looking after him had left the Camerons ‘totally shattered’ and trying to ‘find a way through’.

And she described the shock of his sudden death, which came ‘out of the blue’.

Ivan was born with Ohtahara Syndrome, a rare brain disorder which left him in a wheelchair, needing to be fed through a tube and suffering from cerebral palsy and severe epileptic fits. He died aged six in 2009.

Speaking days ahead of what would have been his 13th birthday on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said: ‘It’s true – it is a knock. You are exhausted. You become a part-time parent, nurser, carer, doctor.’

Mrs Cameron recalled how within days of Ivan’s birth she knew ‘something wasn’t quite right’ because he was making ‘funny, jerky movements’.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday – which pictured her at home in Downing Street with her husband and their other children – she said: ‘It’s your worst nightmare. They did a whole load of tests, they push the box of tissues towards you and you feel like you’re in an episode of Casualty.’

The diagnosis had ‘frightening’ and ‘scary’ implications, she said, adding: ‘It changes your life for ever. It’s tough, lonely and isolating. You are terrified of not being able to cope.’

She praised her ‘amazing, strong and steady’ husband and his ‘sense that it’s going to be OK’.

Mr Cameron, in a separate interview with the Sunday Times, said Ivan was a ‘blessing in lots of ways’ but admitted the strains he created on their life left them both ‘falling apart’. He said: ‘It takes over your life. We both worked out that we could cope, and find a way through this.’

In a frank admission of the pressures their son’s condition had placed on their relationship, Mrs Cameron said: ‘There’s lots of people in our situation whose marriages don’t survive.

‘Looking after a disabled child pushes you to the limits of what you can cope with physically, emotionally. By the end of the first year we were totally shattered and pretty much at breaking point.

‘The doctors realised we needed help. But as parents you have this feeling that you shouldn’t ask for help.’ She added that they were ‘so, so proud’ of Ivan, saying: ‘He was very beautiful, one of the great gifts in our lives. A day when you haven’t been to hospital, a day when he smiled, or a day when you haven’t cried, becomes the most amazing day.’

She described her battles with education bosses who tried to send Ivan to a mainstream school, before his parents secured him a place at a special needs school.

‘Ivan had a feeding tube, very bad epilepsy. He couldn’t sit up. He couldn’t communicate at all. He needed to be somewhere more sensory and stimulating with people who knew how to look after him,’ she said.

His death came as a big shock. ‘It was totally out of the blue and happened so quickly,’ she said.

‘It takes a long time before you see sunlight poking through the dark fog but never does the pain go as it’s so connected to the love.’ She said she still receives some bereavement counselling.

Mr Cameron also spoke of Ivan’s death: ‘Your whole world collapses. You push pause on your life; you stop and have a think. Nothing really matters at that stage.’

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