One morning a few months ago, I went on a run. It took me to a hospice in Clapham, not far from my home. I didn’t go inside, or even set foot in the driveway. Instead, I stood on the pavement looking at its very ordinary facade, nestled amid calming trees and pretty flowerbeds. And I cried.
The idea of walking up the path and through the front door petrified me – perhaps because, for the first time, I’m thinking about the fact that I may have to do just that.
You see, I’m 37 and I have incurable bowel cancer. It’s classed as Stage 4, which means it has spread – in my case, to my liver and lungs
You, Me and the Big C host Deborah James: I’m 37 and I have incurable bowel cancer. It’s classed as Stage 4, which means it has spread to my liver and lungs I was diagnosed three years ago, and according to the statistics, I have just an 8% chance of being alive in 2021
I was diagnosed three years ago, and according to the statistics, I have just an eight per cent chance of being alive in 2021.
I haven’t yet been referred to the hospice. For some reason – thanks to a lot of luck and a brilliant medical team – I’m still here and very much ‘living’ with cancer. But while I enjoy living, I’m aware that planning for the worst case must at least be considered.
So, I’ve decided, after initially being adamant that I wanted my final days to be spent at home with my husband and children, that I don’t want to die at home. It’s for them, more than anything, that I’ve made this decision. For now, anyway.
I worry that the sense of security and happiness they feel at home would be ruined if it became the place they watched their mother die. I don’t want that for them. I want their home to remain a haven. It may not faze some people, but I know I’d find it unbearable if I were in my husband’s or children’s position.
Of course I’m scared of dying. Even writing this, I can feel my heart racing and my fingers slipping off the keyboard. I enjoy my life.
My late, much-missed friend and colleague Rachael Bland, with whom I hosted the award-winning Radio 5 Live podcast You, Me and the Big C, wanted to talk about death before her own last September. So we discussed every aspect of it, from where she wanted to die to her hopes for the son she was leaving behind – Freddie, who was just two. It was heartbreaking. But it helped Rachael come to terms with the premature end of her life at 40. And now that she’s gone, I’ve realised that being forced to confront the process of dying is helping me, too
I have a husband and two children I adore, and I’ve written a book, present a successful podcast, and have run a half marathon since getting the awful news that I had cancer. Yet despite the clever drugs – with hideous side effects – which keep me stable at the moment, my body has other plans. Every day, I have ‘I can’t do this any more’ moments, when living scan to scan, operation to operation, threatens to overwhelm me.
With each new twinge, I can feel my dark fears of death drawing closer.
My instinct has always been to push every thought of what might happen at the end of my life as far away as I could, as if
