It makes sad that m when Steve and out when I met we’d talk ab we got old, eating our fish & chips at 70 on a bench by the coast
CANCER STRICKEN BBC PRESENTER’S LAST PODCAST
I want to spend valuable time with Freddie. I want it to be good time
Rachael Bland did not know she was making her final podcast. Yet there is courage and selflessness in her every word. The You, Me and the Big C episode, released on her explicit wishes, will live on as a fitting legacy to the BBC broadcaster who won our hearts by talking so honestly about cancer, then broke them when she passed away aged 40 in the early hours of September 5.
Rachael, who lived in Cheshire, starts by telling new listeners she hopes she can live up to the hype. She ends by promising to be back next week and bidding a cheerful, sing-song goodbye.
In between she talks of every day issues, such as letting go of her love of shopping because she worries she will not get any wear out of posh new shoes.
And of deeply emotional thoughts, such as tearfully looking into her husband Steve’s eyes knowing she could not plan a future with him.
She said: “When Steve and I met we would have these sweet conversations about when we grow old. We’re going to sit there and we will be 70 years old, sat on a bench by the coast eating our fish and chips. That was something that was always there to look forward to. But the new normal kind of took that away.
“You weren’t able to have those conversations and those innocent thoughts. If I was crying all the time it would make it harder for him, and we wouldn’t be having a nice time. But that’s not to say there aren’t nights where we kind of look each other in the eye and have a good old cry about it.”
Professional to the end, there are no cracks in her voice, no wavering tearful breakdowns at the painful awareness time with her family was running out.
Instead there was determination to grasp life. She said: “One of my friends came to visit me in hospital when I was having my lungs drained and there were a lot sicker people than me. And she said, ‘Mate, you’re not there yet’.
“I’m still broadcasting, still writing. I’m clinging on, with my finger tips, for as long as I possibly can.”
In between the chat there are tiny details of her failing health, which brought her end tragically sooner than anyone realised, in her aside on how feeling wheezy and carrying around an oxygen bottle was her new normal.
And there is lots of laughter with friends and fellow podcasters Deborah James and Lauren Mahon, which now sounds poignant.
As to how she was making the most of her remaining time with three-year-old son Freddie, Rachael said: “The way I deal with it is by not thinking about it too deeply.
“If you go down the rabbit hole too often you’ll get stuck there at the bottom and it’s not a nice place to be. I know I’m probably not going to be living for much longer, but I don’t think about it too deeply about it every day because I wouldn’t be able to look at Freddie without weeping all over him.
“I want to spend valuable time with him, whatever time I have left, I want it to be good time.”
Rachael, a BBC Radio 5 Live newsreader and presenter, was diagnosed with primary triple-negative breast
cancer a lump in under November her arm. 2016 after finding
She began chemotherapy after Christmas last year, had a maste in July and took part in clinical tria the cancer had spread too far.
In the wake of her terminal diag she described leaving a memoir an for her son for each of his birthday the age of 21.
“That’s been a really good di tion, writing down his life, my l the stories I would have told through the years – all the b advice I’d have given him throu years. cult experience So far, rather to than write, being it’s b a pleasure to write and feel like I’m leaving this stuff behind for him
She planned for one of the birthday gifts to be a collection of notebooks, so
he could see his mother’s handwriting. Rachael said: “My sister in law is keeping a scrapbook. Work colleagues are getting a demo tape together to hear my radio work and stuff that’s been on TV.
“That’s comforting to me – dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s before I go.”
Rachael also told of letting go of her favourite hobbies.
She said: “I’m scared to buy clothes because I think, ‘I’m not going to be around for very long. I love shopping and buying things – that’s got me through cancer treatment.
“Now I worry I won’t get cost per wear. But I did buy myself a really expensive handbag the other day because it was a backpack, it will help me carry things.
“My husband said, ‘Get a nice pair of shoes – get Jimmy Choos’. But really, they’re just wasted on me now. I’d wear them once, put them in a box and then won’t see them again. Normally, with shoes, you can stick them in a box in the cupboard for years and come back. But now I can’t have that.” Instead of shopping for herself, Rachael tells of taking Freddie to a toy shop every day and worrying that he might be spoiled.
She said: “Knowing I’m on my way out, I spoil Freddie something rotten. That boy is going to grow up thinking whatever toy he wants, he’s going to get. He’ll say, ‘Mummy, I want a blue crane and a bul-do-dozer’. And I have to search the whole of Amazon to find exactly what he wants. He only has to mention a word, or mention toy shop, and we take him to the toy shop every day and buy him things. Then I think, ‘Are we spoiling him?’. That will be Steve’s problem.”
It was on September 3 she tweeted: “In the words of the legendary Frank S – I’m afraid the time has come my friends.
“And suddenly. I’m told I’ve only got days. It’s very surreal. Thank you so much for all the support.
“Debs and lozz will continue with the #youmebigc podcast. “Au revoir my friends.” That message sent the You, Me and the Big C – which she made with Londoners Deborah James, 35, who has terminal bowel cancer, and Lauren Mahon, 33, who beat cancer after she was diagnosed with in 2016 – to the top of the podcast charts.
Signing off the final podcast, recorded in the month before her death, Rachael says they will be back next week.
In an addition to the recording, Deborah says: “Unfortunately as you are all aware Rachael will not be back next week. However, it’s her explicit wishes that not only do we air it but that we continue with it.”
And on Twitter, Rachael’s husband Steve said: “This is definitely not easy to listen to in one sense, but it’s magical to hear her voice too. She wanted this to go out as planned so please do listen. As always, it’s important.”
Rachael’s final You, Me and the Big C podcast is at: bbc.in/2Nd3YXo
My son only has to mention a word and we take him to the toy shop