HEARTBREAKING:Victoria Derbyshire Reveals Her Battle with a Rare C@ncer and Says She’s Grateful to Be Alive.
The BBC broadcaster recalled losing her hair during chemotherapy as she bravely opened up about battling the illness
Victoria Derbyshire has spoken candidly about her own battle with breast cancer as she reflected on the courageous health decision taken by Marie-France van Heel, wife of new Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
Ms Derbyshire, who received a breast cancer diagnosis in 2015, said she was simply thankful to still be “alive” after enduring the physical toll of treatment.
Her remarks came while discussing Ms van Heel’s choice to undergo a pre-emptive double mastectomy at the age of 40.
The marketing executive opted for the preventative surgery owing to her significant family history of the disease.
Ms Van Heel’s decision was shaped by a devastating pattern of loss and illness within her family.
Her sister Claire died from breast cancer in 2006, while both her mother and a further sister, Louise, also received diagnoses of the condition.
Ms van Heel chose to act before the disease could take hold, electing to have both breasts removed as a preventative measure while she was still just 40 years old.
Ms Derbyshire, who has intimate knowledge of what confronting breast cancer truly involves, used the discussion of Ms van Heel’s situation to open up about her own journey through diagnosis and treatment.
Writing in The i Paper, Ms Derbyshire described how the effects of chemotherapy eventually caught up with her, recalling the distressing moment her hair began falling out in “clumps” in the sink.
She admitted feeling “pretty devastated” by the experience, questioning whether she would need a wig and whether her hair would ever properly return.
Yet the physical changes brought about by her single mastectomy troubled her far less.
“That breast had cancer in it and I was glad it was gone,” she wrote.
“I didn’t really give a stuff about whether I looked lopsided; I was alive, and I was going to see my boys grow up.”
For Ms Derbyshire, survival eclipsed any concern about her altered appearance; being alive was the only thing that truly mattered.
The Newsnight host was 46 when she first noticed something was wrong, with an inverted nipple among the symptoms that prompted her to seek medical attention.
Her treatment was extensive, encompassing chemotherapy, a mastectomy and 30 separate radiotherapy sessions.
Much to her relief, Ms Derbyshire, who has also appeared on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! was given the all-clear just 10 months after her initial diagnosis.
In the years since, she has also found an effective way to cope with the lingering physical after-effects.
Speaking to The Times in 2019, she said: “I have now found the secret to banishing the aches – exercise.
“Going to the gym regularly is a first for me. It’s a joy and a relief that the stretching and strengthening of muscles has dramatically reduced the pain.”
