ITV’s Charlene: My mum died of bowel cancer at just 47... it can strike at any age
CHARLENE White got pretty used to ‘those uncomfortable conversations’ about bowel cancer from an early age. The ITV News presenter – who, last year became the first black woman to host their News At Ten – was just 16 when her mother, Dorette, was diagnosed with the disease.
Six years later, after numerous rounds of surgery and chemotherapy, Dorette’s body finally gave up. She was 47.
Charlene, 35, recalls ‘She told me she was sick while we were cooking one Sunday. She said, “I have to start having some treatment. They found some blood in my stool but it’s nothing to worry about.”
‘Looking back, she and Dad protected us from the worst but never hid the truth. I think she knew she wasn’t going to make it. Almost from the day she told us, she started teaching me how to cook the family meals.’
Today Charlene is patron of charity Bowel Cancer UK and is speaking for the first time about the pain of losing her mother in the hope it will help ‘open up the conversation a little bit more’.
She says: ‘People like Chris Evans, who lost his father to bowel cancer, have been brilliant at getting people talking. But too many people still die unnecessarily.’
She is the face of the charity’s Never Too Young campaign, aimed at raising awareness that every year about 2,100 Britons under the age of 50 are diagnosed with the disease.
‘Lack of awareness among the young causes delays in diagnosis, and therefore treatment,’ says Charlene. ‘As bowel cancer kills more than prostate and breast cancer put together, awareness is vital.’
Bowel cancer that strikes the young is, usually, the most aggressive type. Bleeding is not the only sign. In fact, any changes in toilet habits – such as rushing to the loo, needling more frequent visits, or finding it difficult to go – may well warrant investigation if they last more than two weeks.
‘By the time Mum noticed the blood and went to the doctor, the cancer had really taken hold and it was too late,’ Charlene says. ‘If she’d been aware of other symptoms, maybe she’d have been here today.’
The form of the disease that strikes younger patients often runs in families, and the presenter knows she is at high risk.
‘Although I’m only 35, I go for regular screenings – a colonoscopy – once every few years, , which involves a thin flexiblee tube and camera being passed up p into your bowel. You’re sedated,, and can’t feel a thing. It’s nott embarrassing at all. I eat well, but ut don’t drink too much, and try too avoid fatty food and red meat, t, which helps to minimise risks.’
One person every 15 minutes is diagnosed with bowel cancer, amounting to 41,500 people a year. Of those diagnosed, 16,000 will die. If it’s caught early enough, nine out of ten will survive for longer than five years, but only one in ten is diagnosed at an early stage.
The exact cause of bowel cancer is unknown but there are certain factors that increase risk, such as a strong family history of the disease, or inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis.
About 95 per cent of cases occur in people over 50, but the number of sufferers under that age has risen by nearly 25 per cent in ten years. An inactive lifestyle, a diet low in fruit or vegetables, a high intake of red and processed meat and smoking or excess alcohol are factors.
Charlene, who has a younger brother Joshua, 22, and sister Carina, 30, is full of admiration for the way her father Dennis, 64, a postman, coped when her mother fell ill. She says: ‘Dad was incredible and did things like change her colostomy bag and carried her to the bath when she was too weak. I had my last conversation with Mum about two weeks before she passed away. She said, “Dad deserves to have someone to spend his life with.” So when he did remarry five years later, we didn’t react badly.
‘After our conversation, she was barely lucid. It was April 22, 2002, when the Macmillan nurses told us, “Your mum’s going.” We all went in and kissed her goodbye and she died not long afterwards.’
Charlene now gives talks at conferences to help raise awareness. She adds: ‘People get embarrassed and scared about things going wrong at that end of the system, enough to put off a visit to the doctor. But it’s so important we get over ourselves. Your life might depend on it.’