BBC newsreader Rachael Bland has shared the devastating news that her cancer is incurable.
The Radio 5 Live newsreader was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2016 and she then underwent months of chemotherapy.
Writing on her blog, Big C, Little Me, Rachael recalled the moment she found out the heartbreaking news.
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She began her post: “I would love to be writing you a more positive post but unfortunately, the bad news keeps on racking up.”
Rachael explained that she underwent lymph node surgery in February but the results of the biopsies showed the cancer is metastatic, therefore incurable.
Rachael said she was told the heartbreaking news during a day out with her son Freddie.
“My heart raced as I answered it, knowing a phone call did not bode well,” she said.
“Then came the words ‘I am so sorry, it’s bad news. The biopsies have come back showing the same cancer is back and is in the skin’.”
Rachael continued: “I watched my little Freddie innocently playing away in a tyre in the barn and my heart broke for him.”
She said she “scooped” Freddie up and “dashed home” to tell her husband Steve the news that her cancer is incurable.
Rachael said she was referred to the Clinical Trials Unit and is now part of a clinical trial for a new immunotherapy treatment, which encourages your own immune system to fight the cancer.
“Now I have turned lab rat,” she wrote. “I am in the hands of the incredible team on the Christie Clinical Trials Unit.”
Speaking about the clinical trial, Rachael continued: “It is a Phase 1b trial so very early in the process and I feel an odd sense of pride that I am one of fewer than 150 people worldwide who will test it.
“If it doesn’t help me then I hope the data I provide will at some point in the future help others in the same position.”
Rachael also opened up about the condition of her cancer.
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“I have extensive skin metatases in my left breast and chest, mets to the nodes above the collar bone on the left side,” she explained.
“I have a tumour in my liver and a couple of suspicious spots on my spine. I also have a small collection of fluid on the outside of my right lung. So that’s skin, nodes, liver, bones, lung.”
Rachael said she’s five days into a “strict protocol of infusions and tablet taking” and she feels “a bit like a grenade with the pin out”.
The presenter said her next scan is in six weeks and if the cancer has shrunk or is stable she will stay on the trial, however, if it has grown by more than 20 percent, then she will “cut my losses and try the next one”.
“We are waiting and hoping,” she concluded. “Whatever greater power you believe in, send us your collective prayers.”
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