From living with incurable bowel cancer to becoming and Dame and her untimely death, the last extraordinary five years of cancer campaigner Deborah James’ life are captured in a new film. In the brutally honest and incredibly moving BBC Two documentary - Deborah James: Bowelbabe In Her Own Words - Deborah talks about how, for the first time, she started to "lose the will to live" and her emotional goodbyes to her children.
The campaigner, journalist, and mum-of-two from London was just 40 years old when she died in June 2022 at her parents' home in Woking after being diagnosed with incurable bowel cancer in 2016. Following her diagnosis, Deborah vowed to raise awareness to help others spot and tackle bowel cancer more quickly and, before she died, had raised more than £7m for bowel cancer research.
Now in the very emotional documentary, Deborah talks about the end of her life and just how tough the treatment was. After experiencing a haemorrhage and being rushed to hospital, she was forced to shout "I love you" to her children as she was carried down the stairs, believing this would be the last time she would ever see them.
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In hospital recovering from the haemorrhage a very emotional Deborah, said: "It is 4am in the morning and I've been having a good cry. I don't know how anybody can get through what I am going through at the moment. I have kind of been crying for three days now and I'm starting to lose the will to live and I never ever ever say that. Ever. I want to be living but I want to actually be living, I don't want to be existing."
Later in the documentary in a very emotional interview, Deborah spoke about leaving her children behind. She said: "I have a really loving family, who are just incredible, and I know that my kids are going to be surrounded by love and you always want to know as a mother, are your kids going to be okay? And my kids are going to be fine but it doesn't mean that I am not going to miss every chance that I could have had with them."
Deborah James: Bowelbabe In Her Own Words is on BBC Two on Monday, April 17 at 9pm.
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