Steve McLenan sits in his front room, his wife Elaine next to him.
“You couldn’t write it,” says the 57-year-old plumber from Bucksburn, still sounding slightly dazed.
Given what they’ve been through, it’s hard to disagree.
In July 2023, Elaine was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a complete shock — she wasn’t unwell, had no symptoms, and only got the diagnosis because of a routine mammogram.
The next day, less than 24 hours later, Steve received his own diagnosis: stage 3 bowel cancer.
“You tell people one thing, and their faces drop,” says Elaine, 55. “Then you tell them the second thing, and they’re speechless.”
Steve and Elaine: Teenage sweethearts to cancer patients
For the couple who first dated as teenagers at Bucksburn’s Bankhead Academy 40 years ago, the past few years have been some of their toughest.
Married in 1991, they have two children — Craig, 29, who works offshore, and Jemma, 26, a teacher at Northfield Academy.
But the blur of appointments and treatment plans rivalled even the sleepless nights of raising kids — especially because they went through it at the same time.
What stands out most when you sit down with Steve and Elaine, though, is how differently they process their shared cancer diagnoses.
Steve cracks jokes, even about the darkest moments. Elaine, more soft-spoken, just gives him a look — 40 years of knowing what he’s like.
It’s there when Steve jokes about scoring a goal with his backside during a game of walking football — then worrying he’d burst his stoma bag, the pouch some bowel cancer patients wear to collect waste.
And again when he says he named the bag Boris, after the former Prime Minister, “because of what it’s full of.”
“You’ll get used to his sense of humour,” Elaine says, with the faintest smile.
And you get the feeling it’s exactly what has carried them through.
How Elaine and Steve McLenan were given their shocking cancer news
The chaos began just as they were preparing for a break. Elaine had been recalled after a routine mammogram, and was offered an appointment to get her results — but the couple had plans to go to the Lake District, one of their favourite spots.
“I don’t know,” she says now. “Something in my mind just knew. I said, no, we’re going. We need this holiday.”
At the hospital the following Wednesday, Elaine was told she had breast cancer — a tumour too large for a lumpectomy, meaning a mastectomy was the only option. There was a Macmillan nurse in the room. That was the first giveaway.
“The consultant walked in with her and I just thought, okay… this isn’t going to be good news,” she says.
The next day, it was Steve’s turn. After a positive bowel screening test, he’d undergone a colonoscopy. The results came back less than 24 hours after Elaine’s diagnosis.
“I was on a job in Dyce when the surgeon phoned,” he says. He finished what he was doing and went straight home.
If that wasn’t enough, Elaine’s father — who had been unwell — died just weeks later, before she had the chance to tell him about the diagnosis.
The day after the funeral, she came home to a voicemail from the hospital asking her to come in for a heart echo — a routine check to make sure her heart was fit for surgery.
“It was like one door closed and the next thing hit you straight in the face,” she says. “There was no time to stop and process anything. We just kept going.”
‘He’d down chemo pills like tequila shots’
Their treatment paths ran side by side, often overlapping — and sometimes flipping the usual roles they played.
Elaine’s surgery came first. What was supposed to be a straightforward overnight stay turned into a week in high dependency after she reacted to the anaesthetic and her lungs collapsed.
“I was only supposed to be in for the night,” she says. “But I just needed so much oxygen. I wasn’t really able to do anything when I got home.”
For a few short weeks, Steve took the lead — cooking meals and converting their son’s old bedroom into a makeshift kitchenette so Elaine wouldn’t need to go up and down the stairs.
But by October, when Steve began chemotherapy, the baton passed back.
“It floored me,” he says of the cancer treatment. “I just wasn’t prepared for how much it would wipe me out.”
Elaine stepped in — again — helping him through each round. The physical side effects were brutal, especially the fatigue and bowel issues. The chemo tablets were so harsh, Steve took to knocking them back in shot glasses.
“You’re not even meant to touch them with your hands,” Elaine says. “So we’d sit at the dinner table every night and he’d down them like tequila.”
By Christmas, both were depleted — but determined to keep things normal. Jemma took over the cooking after they prepped the meal in advance.
“She’s been amazing,” Elaine says. “Both kids have. Just having them pop in and help, or drop off food, made all the difference.”
Steve’s pain at not being able to work
For more than 40 years, Steve has worked as a plumber. He started with Duncan Bathrooms in 1984, fresh out of school, and has been with them ever since.
Not being able to work has been one of the hardest parts of recovery.
“It’s been a huge adjustment,” he says. “I tried changing the top off a tap outside — a job that would’ve taken me ten minutes before. I ended up having to sit down halfway through.”
He hasn’t worked since chemo began in October 2023 — and knows it won’t be the same when he returns.
“You get under a floor, or you’re lifting something heavy, and now I’d need a break straight after. It’s frustrating. I’m not used to being the one who has to stop.”
The physical toll hasn’t just affected his energy. Steve was fitted with a stoma during his bowel cancer surgery, and it has forced him to rethink everything — from how he sleeps to the simple act of sitting down.
“For about two months, I couldn’t sit properly. I had my feet up all the time, or I was sideways on cushions.”
The stoma itself — Boris — is a constant presence. Some days, it behaves. Other days, it doesn’t. And with nerve damage from the surgery affecting his bladder and bowel, even routine outings can feel unpredictable.
He’s trying to do something about that, though.
A lifelong Don, Steve is working with Aberdeen FC to make the toilets more stoma accessible, making it easier for fans to go to games easily.
“They put in a shelf, and another shelf at a decent height [in the toilets],” he says. “It’s a steel shelf that folds down, so you can do what you’ve got to do. It’s not perfect, but they’ve definitely tried to do things to help out.”
Steve takes to the catwalk with cancer fashion show Brave
Today, both Steve and Elaine are in recovery.
Elaine finished radiotherapy just before Christmas 2023 and continues to monitor her health through regular check-ups. Steve’s chemotherapy ended in January last year, and came with some unexpected good news.
Their son Craig and wife Lily were expecting twins. Gabi and Mila were born the following July.
“It was the boost we needed,” Steve says.
Steve credits daughter Jemma with providing him with his next challenge — stepping out onto the catwalk at P&J Live next month as one of 24 men taking part in cancer charity fundraiser Brave.
She helped with the application after Steve missed a previous cut-off date, corralling friends and family into sending supporting notes to boost his chances.
It worked, and though strutting down the runway in front of hundreds of cheering spectators is a long way out of Steve’s comfort zone, he’s already loving the camaraderie the annual Friends of Anchor event instills in its participants, who quickly bond over their shared health histories.
And of course, Elaine will be in the audience, watching.
“It’ll take things back,” she says. “All the memories, and the reason we’re there. It’ll bring it all back.”
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