THE SADDEST GOODBYE
Radio star Rachael Bland wrote a heartbreaking diary about her fight against cancer — and letters for her son Freddie, 2, to treasure. Now, after losing her battle, her bittersweet legacy has inspired thousands ... and will move you to tears
THERE was never any good news, no let-up or respite. But BBC radio presenter Rachael Bland refused to quit the fight.
After enduring chemotherapy, radiotherapy, a lumpectomy, a mastectomy and other surgical procedures to try to halt the spread of the cancer tearing through her body, in the last months she was undergoing experimental treatment as part of a clinical trial in the hope of gaining more time.
It was all for Freddie, of course, her little boy, whom she so wanted to see grow up.
Tragically, the 40-year-old died in the early hours of yesterday morning, peacefully, with her family at her side, two days after her final social media post, in which she said, managing a little humour even at this time: ‘In the words of the legendary Frank S — I’m afraid the time has come my friends.’
Right up to the end, Rachael had clung to hope, kept smiling, for little Freddie’s sake.
In her last article, written only a week ago, she wrote: ‘When you are in my position — knowingly approaching the end of your life, with a husband you adore with all your heart and a three-year-old son you love so much that if you looked at him too long your heart could burst — you need two major things to get you through.
‘Hope. And denial. It is as a mother that I have to employ my strongest skills of denial.
‘If I were to release my feelings about leaving my precious, beautiful Freddie behind, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the rest of my time on this earth.
‘So I tuck them away, graciously accept every little hug, squeeze, cuddle and utterance of “I love you so much, Mummy”, and try not to let him see it break my heart.’
Rachael spent her final weeks writing a memoir, For Freddie, as fast as her failing strength would allow, giving him advice, telling him her likes and dislikes — and instructing him to ignore anyone who had a bad word to say about The Sound Of Music, one of her favourite films.
She also put together a collection of keepsakes for him: her notebooks, so he would know what her writing was like, and the perfume he chose for her earlier this year.
Rachael also planned to wrap birthday presents for her son to unwrap every year until he turns 21.
SADLY, she didn’t make even his third birthday, which will be on September 16. ‘The main thing is that, while he’s so young, I want him to remember me in some way,’ she wrote. ‘I hope the book and these gifts and notes will leave an imprint of my love behind for the rest of his life. So he can be sure how very much I love him.’
Over the past 18 months, the Radio 5 live presenter documented her battle with breast cancer in an award-winning blog, Big C. little Me, and podcast, you, Me And The Big C, which she did with fellow cancer patients deborah James and lauren Mahon.
Frank, unflinching, sometimes humorous and painfully heart-rending on the occasions she spoke about Freddie, the blog provided ballast to those who were going through the same thing and made those who weren’t grateful for their lot.
yesterday, Radio 5 live presenter Tony livesey, who worked with Rachael at various stages of her career — and, at the age of 13, lost his own mother to cancer — told the BBC that Radio 5 live was ‘broadcasting with a broken heart’.
Welsh-born Rachael joined the BBC more than 15 years ago and worked on channels including BBC World and BBC North West Tonight.
She married fellow BBC journalist Steve Bland in 2013 and their son, Freddie, was born in 2015. She and Steve were settled in Knutsford, Cheshire, and had just started trying for a second baby when, in November 2016, came the shattering diagnosis — primary triple-negative breast cancer that had spread to four lymph nodes under her arm.
Rachael had felt a lump in her breast and had reassured herself that it might be something to do with breastfeeding, but saw her doctor anyway to be on the safe side.
When she learned it was cancer, she was, of course, terrified, shocked and devastated. But mingled with these emotions was a level of optimism. She’d run marathons and completed triathlons, she was young and otherwise physically fit.
She believed then that, postcancer, post- chemo and surgery, there would be a future. And that future, she hoped, would include a brother or sister for Freddie. In her blog, she revealed that, knowing chemotherapy can leave women infertile, she had asked her doctors to allow her to have one cycle of IVF before she began treatment.
She underwent a procedure, under sedation, to collect her eggs on Boxing day 2016. Four fertilised embryos were later put into deep-freeze storage.
HOWEVER, Rachael hoped that once her treatment was completed, she might be able to conceive naturally.
Two days after having her eggs removed, Rachael began four- and- a- half months of chemotherapy at Macclesfield Hospital. She had a cold cap fitted during treatment to help prevent hair loss.
Rachael continued to work during her treatment as well as running around after Freddie. She wrote in her blog: ‘As exhausting as it can be having chemo and looking after a toddler, getting his daily dose of energy, joy and positivity is the best medicine.’
On May 19 last year, Rachael
underwent a lumpectomy, and had all the lymph nodes removed from under her arm.
At first, it seemed that she might not need further surgery, but in July, Rachael was told more cancer had been detected and she would need a mastectomy.
This was followed by another ‘excision’ of her breast, when yet more cancerous cells were found.
Doctors were gravely concerned and told Rachael she would need to undergo a second gruelling course of chemotherapy after her radiotherapy treatment.
It all began to take its toll. In January this year, the month she turned 40, Rachael opened up about the creeping fear you can’t escape from when you have cancer.
‘Cancer comes with its very own specialised form of anxiety,’ she wrote. ‘There’s the obvious fear of death that pervades every thread of your life, from imagining your child without his mummy to picturing your own funeral.
‘By far the worst aspect of cancer anxiety is what we in the cancer community call “scanxiety”. Like an actor is only as good as their last film, so a cancer patient is only as well as their last scan.’
Rachael’s wry take on living with the disease won her thousands of supporters. And speaking openly about the fears that a person living with cancer often keeps hidden deep away, seemed to help others.
In podcasts, she had frank conversations about the ‘Big C’ with others, such as actor Greg Wise, whose sister, Clare, died in September 2016 from cancer.
But despite all the treatment she had undergone, Rachael was beginning to worry that she wasn’t winning her own battle. She wrote about pain in her hip and in her spine. One morning she woke up feeling horribly sick.
In February, she had further surgery to remove more lymph nodes — and was told that seven out of the 19 were cancerous. This was a sign, she said, that ‘the previous four months of chemo hadn’t really cut the mustard’.
A few weeks after surgery, her breast became swollen and red, and biopsies were taken.
In April, she received her ‘D-Day’ call — Death Day, as she put it with grim humour — while she was out at an ice cream farm with Freddie and some of his friends.
Her consultant told her: ‘I’m sorry, Rachael — it’s back and it’s incurable.’
‘Hearing those words ripped the air right out of my lungs and I had to lean against a wall to steady myself,’ she recalled in her last article, written last week for the Huffington Post.
‘On the short journey back, I wept and kept telling Freddie: “I’m so sorry”.’
Rachael was told her cancer had spread into her left breast and the skin on her chest, and she also had a tumour in her liver and ‘suspicious spots’ on her spine. It was time to clutch at straws. Earlier this summer, she signed up to a clinical trial at the Christie Hospital Clinical Trials Unit. The trial would involve having immunotherapy, which works by kick-starting the immune system into attacking cancer cells.
It has successfully treated a number of cancers, but not breast cancer. The trial would have involved taking a new drug alongside the immunotherapy, designed to make it more effective in breast cancer patients. ‘I would love to be writing you a more positive post but unfortunately, the bad news keeps on racking up,’ Rachael wrote on her blog in July.
‘We are waiting and hoping. Whatever greater power you believe in, send us your collective prayers.’
But the new treatment did not slow down the voracious spread of the disease, and Rachael was finding it difficult to breathe due to fluid amassing between her lungs and ribs.
She was too ill to continue the trial and was sent home from hospital on oxygen, gravely ill.
Rachael was told there was only one more trial available — but only if her respiratory system became ‘stable’ and she could function without oxygen.
Tragically, she was never well enough for that to be possible.
Deep down, there began a process of acceptance, of sorts, that she might not make it.
‘Sometimes there is a little voice that says: “Are you enjoying the sun? I don’t think you’ve got another winter in you,”’ she reflected in a podcast.
RACHAEL’S
thoughts turned to the urgency of ensuring that Freddie would grow up knowing as much as possible about his mum, should the worst happen.
She began writing her memoir for him, and putting together the keepsakes that would bring back memories of his mother.
The memoir, she said, would contain ‘all the stories and advice I would have given Fred . . . but won’t be around to do in person.
‘I have to suppress a lot of the darkest thoughts about Freddie growing up without his mummy. I would like to see it published before I die. But at the moment it feels like a race against time.’
She also began passing on thoughts about Freddie’s future to her husband Steve’s sister.
‘I have a WhatsApp group with Steve’s sister, where I send her things I want for Freddie and his future. The things that might overwhelm and upset Steve now, but she will make sure happens.
‘Like not cutting his hair too short until he really insists, or my wish for him to go to the very best school and university possible, so long as that’s what he wants.’
On Monday this week, Rachael revealed that she had been told she had only days to live.
‘It’s very surreal,’ she wrote. ‘Au revoir my friends.’
Yesterday, her husband announced her death.
‘ Our beautiful, courageous Rachael died peacefully this morning surrounded by her close family,’ he said in a statement.
‘We are crushed, but she would want me to thank everyone who took an interest in her story or sent messages of support.
‘You’ll never know how much they meant to her. Steve and Freddie xxx’
In the coming years, Freddie will read his mother’s memoir, breathe in her perfume and remember her. And he will, you can be sure, watch The Sound Of Music, too.