The NHS can do nothing more for me ..I’m going to Germany for my treatment
Tessa Jowell on brain cancer battle
FORMER cabinet minister Dame Tessa Jowell has spoken movingly about her fight against a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer.
In a searingly frank interview, the Labour former Culture Secretary, 70, said she is willing to try experimental treatments in a bid to save her life.
Tessa – credited with bringing the 2012 Olympics to London – told how her diagnosis in May last year came as a complete shock, and her hopes of a quick cure were soon dashed.
Occasionally needing to be
I am not afraid. I am going to do everything that I can to make sure I live a long time TESSA JOWELL ON HER OUTLOOK AFTER BRAIN TUMOUR DIAGNOSIS
reminded of the word she was searching for, she said of her diagnosis: “I had not a single apparent symptom. I don’t think I immediately leapt to the inevitability of cancer.
“I think that, to begin with, I felt I would have this tumour, that it would be operated on and that would be it.”
But the NHS can offer her no further treatment for her high-grade tumour, known as a glioblastoma.
She said: “It’s actually much harder now, because my life is day by day affected by the tumour – and affected by the uncertainty of what my cancer is going to mean, for how long.” After exhausting all her treatment options in the UK, the politician sought advice from American medics and has seen a consultant in Germany.
Tessa said: “It got to the point in the NHS in London where I couldn’t be given any more treatment.
But it was very clear that if I went to Germany I had a chance of taking out this immunotherapy, a new experiment. I was and I am prepared to try.”
The grandmother said she also is backing adaptive clinical trials, which allow medics to modify treatments during the trial, according to patients’ responses. And she is calling for cancer sufferers to be able to try more experimental treatments on the NHS.
She said: “Brain cancers happen very quickly. You have to show there’s been change quickly and if you don’t, then basically nothing changes.”
The former minister is campaigning for cancer patients to be allowed to take chances with their treatment.
She said: “I am absolutely 100% trying to stay alive. That is the kind of risk patients should be free to take.
“It should be a risk they have the chance to take, and it’s certainly what somebody like me wants.
“I see that the opportunity to take this risk is longer than the likelihood of my life surviving a very long time.”
Tessa, who is due to speak to the House of Lords today, said she now has a “clear sense of purpose”.
She wants to try to help other cancer sufferers, and has been overwhelmed by the public’s support.
“I have just had the most wonderful letters from people. About two and a half thousand.
“I have so much love in my family, my children, my friends. I want that to be experienced by other people too.”
Tessa said she has been inspired by the late Irish poet Seamus Heaney: “I was deeply touched by Seamus Heaney’s last words when he said, ‘Do not be afraid.’ I am not afraid.”
“I feel very clear about my sense of purpose and what I want to do. How do I know how long it’s going to last?
“I’m certainly going to do everything I can to make it a very long time.”
Tessa was interviewed by BBC host Nick Robinson – who was treated for lung cancer in 2015 – for a Radio 4 Today programme cancer special.
She was in the studio yesterday to hear her prerecorded interview played.