‘If I can help one other person then I’ve succeeded’
Deborah James was a selfconfessed hypochondriac, but in 2016, it turned out she had good reason to be concerned.
The fit, healthy, marathonrunning mum-of-two was passing blood, frequently going to the toilet, losing weight and felt extremely tired.
‘I put it down to having two young children, but despite my age and eating healthily, I was fearful it was something sinister,’ she says. Routine blood and stool tests found nothing.
The symptoms persisted and she was referred for a colonoscopy in December that year. Deborah’s husband, Sebastien, went to the appointment with her and it was there that doctors discovered a 6cm tumour in her bowel. They broke the news: it was likely cancerous.
‘I was completely blind-sided,’ Deborah, a former deputy headteacher, says. ‘It was a total shock.’
She didn’t have much time for the news to sink in, because the following month she had surgery to remove the tumour and needed a bowel resection. Devastatingly, doctors discovered the cancer had metastasised to her lungs, and it was regraded as stage four.
‘ You go to a very dark place,’ Deborah admits. She’d always imagined she’d live until her 80s, having watched her kids grow up. But that dream was being taken away from her.
Yet her bravery shone through and, rather than let it overwhelm her, she decided she wanted to help others. So she began writing a blog called Bowel Babe to document her journey.
Deborah wanted to make people aware of bowel cancer symptoms, offer support to newly diagnosed sufferers and encourage people to talk. Especially about poo!
‘I also wanted to connect with people I could relate to,’ Deborah says.
She ended up meeting BBC news presenter Rachael Bland online, who was battling breast cancer, along with fellow sufferer Lauren Mahon. In March 2018, together they started an award-winning podcast called You, Me and the Big C, about their experiences. But that September, Rachael died, aged just 40. ‘That really shook me,’ she admits. ‘ We’d become very close and I just never thought she’d die.’
The podcast has continued amid further surgery and chemo for Deborah, as well as running a busy household and spending time with her children –
Hugo, 13, and Eloise, 11. She still loves clothes, seeing her friends, being with her family and the odd trip to the pub. ‘ You’ve got to live your life,’ she says.
Deborah, now 39, writes a weekly column in a national newspaper, is active on social media and continues to raise awareness of bowel cancer. She’s had thousands of messages of support, and for that, she’s incredibly grateful.
For the moment, Deborah continues with her treatment and had further surgeries. She praises science and the research going into finding new ways to tackle the disease.
And she’s determined to keep fighting. ‘I’m too busy living to focus on dying,’ she declares.