Bowelbabe blogger an inspiration
DAME Deborah James crammed more into the final weeks of her life than many manage in a lifetime. As her bowel cancer worsened, she made every day count with outings and appeals for people to check their poo for signs of the disease.
The Duke of Cambridge visited her family home in Surrey to honour her with a damehood, partly for her role in raising £6.5million for cancer charities.
Shining with a megawatt smile at Ascot, Glyndebourne opera house and the Chelsea Flower Show in her last weeks, she showed enormous bravery while in pain.
Her selfless courage helped ease the pain of her husband, Sebastien Bowen, and their children, Hugo, 14, and Eloise, 12.
Deborah’s stage three bowel cancer was diagnosed in late 2016 at the age of 35.At the time the computer science teacher was deputy headteacher of Matthew Arnold School in Staines-Upon-Thames.
The following year she began blogging about her diagnosis under the name Bowelbabe and, in 2018, she became one of three presenters on BBC 5 Live’s You, Me and the Big C, conceived by journalist and presenter Rachael Bland, who had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer in 2016. Bland died aged 40 in September 2018.
James and her surviving co-host Lauren Mahon continued to present the show along with Rachael’s husband, Steve Bland.
On social media and in a newspaper column, James documented her surgeries and many chemo and radiotherapy sessions.
Last summer she told her 900,000 Instagram followers a new tumour had developed around her liver.
Throughout her battles, she was cheery and optimistic and even made time to write two books – the second, How to Live When You Could Be Dead, out in August, is already an Amazon bestseller. Shortly before her death, she said: “Flowers are a reminder of our future. We plant the seed not knowing what we might see grow.
“Nature is a reminder that life continues to blossom, even in some of the hardest places, and brings a smile to all of our faces, even in the hardest of times – particularly mine.” Her family said:
“Deborah was an inspiration and we’re incredibly proud of her and her work and commitment to charitable campaigning, fundraising and endless efforts to raise awareness of cancer that touched so many lives. Even in her most challenging moments, Deborah’s determination to raise money and awareness was inspiring.”