Wes Streeting and The Ladies Football Club cast (Image: PA/Johan Persson)
Clutching my programme outside the stage door of The Crucible in Sheffield, I nervously waited to say hi to Cara Theobold. I’d just watched her give a stellar performance in a play called The Ladies Football Club, which you must see when it tours. (If it doesn’t tour, it will be an absolute travesty of our time.) My nervousness came not from meeting a celebrity, as during my career I’ve met all sorts – Boris Johnson when he was the Mayor of London, Nigel Farage at the Brexit flotilla, Ed Miliband long after his hopes of power ended with the infamous bacon sandwich pictures and panto stars like Chloe Madeley.
It came from not wanting to come across as an absolute idiot like I did when I met Christian Slater outside a stage door in London back in 2004 after he’d just performed in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. As he walked off after signing the front of my programme, I exclaimed: « You’re my hero. » He seemed taken aback and replied: « Thanks, man. »
Cara Theobold stars in The Ladies Football Club (Image: Johan Persson)
Read more: If Wes Streeting wants to reform NHS, he could do worse than a visit to my GP
Read more: ‘Bloodied killer fled murder scene at busy UK station – time to find fugitive’
So this time, on a cold, night, I tried to be as cool, calm, and collected as I could. Did I manage it? I’m not sure. I managed to talk to Cara without mentioning how I thought she was amazing in Crazyhead and stressed how super she was in the play, and how it would be great if it tours.
And, most importantly, I managed to refrain from shouting out anything about a hero. Walking back to my hotel, the two encounters 22 years apart made me think about how I would do things differently if I recovered from my bowel cancer and then got a different type in 22 years’ time.
I know it’s pointless to think about as my cancer is incurable and, the statistics suggest, I may only have two years left. But I do live my life in a sea of what-ifs.
If my second cancer were judged to be curable, then I still think I’d be just as scared as I am now because nothing is certain.
Just because the scans would suggest chemo could destroy the tumours within six months, there’s never any guarantee.
I’d always worry about the medics having missed something, and I don’t think I’d respond well to a world where I would be called cancer-free.
The only thing I’d know with any certainty is that I should take sachets of pepper with me to hospital in an attempt to pep up bland chicken mayonnaise sandwiches.
And I know I’d need a lot of counselling afterwards to know that my fears of the cancer returning for a third time were normal, but also how important it is not to let this fear consume me.
That is why I’m so pleased that when Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced in February that all cancer patients would be getting a personal cancer plan to support them throughout their journey, he pledged that it would include support after treatment.
In all the time that the Daily Express has been running our Cancer Care campaign, this has been a key aspect.
Everyone living with cancer, or who is now cancer-free, should have the support they need so they don’t spend their lives living in fear.
And if they do worry about anything, it should be whether they’ll embarrass themselves by shouting « You’re my hero » at an actor outside a stage door.
Source link
