What kind of cancer patient will you be? If you don’t already know, you’re likely to find out: half of us will be diagnosed with the disease at some point in our lives. Dame Deborah James was a remarkable cancer patient. After she was told she had stage 3 bowel cancer in 2016, aged 35, the then-deputy head teacher threw herself into raising awareness of its symptoms and sharing the reality of such a diagnosis, initially via her blog Bowelbabe; then a column in the Sun; a lively and hugely popular social media presence; and the hit BBC podcast You, Me and the Big C, which she hosted alongside fellow cancer patients Rachael Bland and Lauren Mahon.
James did all this with equal parts glamour and candour – no easy task when you have “the poo cancer,” as she christened it on the podcast. “There’s nothing pink about my cancer,” she continued wryly. “It’s just brown.”
