Bill Turnbull’s ‘six rounds of chemo’ to fight prostate cancer
BILL Turnbull has had six rounds of chemotherapy to fight prostate cancer.
The former BBC presenter, who revealed his diagnosis in March, now fears he will need even more treatment.
Turnbull, 62, said: ‘I’ve just had six rounds of chemo. But I think I’m going to have to have more which is irritating because it’s worse as time goes on.
‘It’s one of those things – it has to happen. But anything that can help is good.’
The Daily Mail is campaigning to improve prostate cancer treatment and diagnosis, which lags years behind other cancers. One in eight men will be affected by prostate cancer – the most common cancer among men.
With 47,200 cases a year and 11,800 deaths, it has overtaken breast cancer as the third most fatal type of the disease.
Turnbull revealed earlier this year that his disease had spread ‘to the bone’, with doctors giving him up to 18 years to live.
Turnbull was at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show yesterday when he said: ‘There is no cure for prostate cancer so it’s just a question of managing it for as long as you can. So we’ll see what happens, prognosis is not brilliant but it’s not dire by any means, I’ve got quite a lot of time still so it’s alright. I’m not having a bucket list.’
The father of three did not see a doctor for four years because he put his aches and pains down to ‘old age’.
‘I didn’t have anything wrong with me – I thought’, he said. ‘Occasionally I sort of think, “Well if only I had taken notice of this or taken notice of that or if we caught it sooner”, then my outlook would be a lot brighter. But it is what it is and you just have to deal with it and get on with it.’
When he revealed his diagnosis, he urged others to get tested, saying if he’d sought help earlier, ‘I’d be in a much better state’.
Turnbull, who is ‘in talks’ to write another book, described the Royal Marsden NHS Trust – where he is being treated - as ‘absolutely brilliant’.
Speaking about the support he has been shown by his family, he added: ‘My wife’s incredible. I’d be lost, absolutely lost, without her.’
He also said he had been touched by kind messages from the public, especially from those who claimed they had been to see a doctor because of him.
‘So many people I’d never met before got in contact with messages of support.’