What cancer taught me: Jake Bailey speaks
The Christchurch head boy whose words went viral after he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer almost didn’t make his speech.
Jake Bailey, then 18, spoke at the Christchurch Boys’ High School 2015 prizegiving. He had just been diagnosed with Stage 4 Burkitt nonHodgkin’s lymphoma, one of the most aggressive cancers known to science.
Speaking from his wheelchair, a frail Bailey told students that “none of us get out of life alive. So be gallant, be great, be gracious and be grateful for the opportunities you have.”
His speech went viral and he received wellwishes from people around the world. More than 1.7 million people have viewed the video on YouTube.
But 18 months later — and now in remission — he told last night’s Sunday programme on TVNZ he almost didn’t make it to the assembly.
After a week in hospital receiving chemotherapy, the day he gave his speech was his lowest point.
He remembers getting out of bed and shaving before the prizegiving — the physical exhaustion from that simple act made him vomit.
Bailey had lost nearly 15kg, which was excruciatingly obvious when he tried on his uniform.
“My blazer was like a cape, my arms stuck out at funny angles, my legs were like sticks holding me up,” he told Sunday.
He had written the speech before getting sick and was determined to read it. But an hour before the prizegiving, a nurse asked him if he was ready and he said he couldn’t do it.
“She said, ‘That’s fine but I just don’t want you to regret it’. I stood up and gave the nurse a hug and my mum wheeled me out of the hospital.”
The many lessons the 19-year-old has learned are covered in his new book, What Cancer Taught Me, to be released this month.
A documentary about his life, The Common Touch, screens at the Documentary Edge Festival in Wellington on May 11 and Auckland on June 3.
The hardest part of the battle was rebuilding himself after beating the illness, Bailey told Sunday. But he was determined not to let it break him.
“In adversity, you have a choice, and that choice is to let it cripple you or grow from that.”