{"id":51475,"date":"2025-04-26T06:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T06:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/51475\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T06:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T06:51:10","slug":"sometimes-i-think-why-me-and-i-scream-at-god-but-you-cant-be-so-scared-of-dying-you-become-afraid-of-living-trisha-goddard-reveals-incurable-cancer-treatment-in-first-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/51475\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Sometimes I think “Why me?” And I scream at God… but you can’t be so scared of dying you become afraid of living’: TRISHA GODDARD reveals incurable cancer treatment in first interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please don\u2019t apply the word \u2018terminal\u2019 to Trisha Goddard<\/a>\u2019s cancer<\/a>. Life-limiting, incurable, stage four, metastatic \u2013 because it has spread from her breast to her hip bone \u2013 are all allowable, but do not imply she is dying from it because most emphatically, she is not.<\/p>\n

Here she is today, her skin luminescent, her wit stiletto-sharp, with a rich vein of dark humour lacing her anecdotes, proving she is every bit as entertaining and provocative as she was when she presented her ITV<\/a> show Trisha in the UK for 12 years from 1998.<\/p>\n

To a mixed chorus of consternation, incredulity and admiration \u2013 she has never been known to provoke an anodyne response \u2013 Trisha has just completed a nine-day stint in ITV\u2019s Celebrity Big Brother<\/a> House.<\/p>\n

She made history as the first ever contestant to enter the house while undergoing palliative care for stage four breast cancer. Last week she became the third housemate to be evicted \u2013 the former Conservative MP Michael Fabricant<\/a> preceded her, while actor Mickey Rourke was ejected for flouting the rules of common decency \u2013 and her appearance on the reality TV<\/a> show was testament to her determination to wring every drop of joy out of the life she has left.<\/p>\n

Even so, she has faced rancour: \u2018I had messages like, \u201cYou should be spending your dying days with your family, not in the Big Brother House\u201d, and the assumption is that the cancer has spread all over your body: liver, kidney; everywhere. But for a hell of a lot of people with metastatic cancer \u2013 me included \u2013 it\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s in my bone; specifically my right hip bone. And people have lived with cancer like this for five, ten even 20 years. By the end of this year there will be 3.4 million Brits living with cancer, a lot of them almost hiding away \u2013 and I wanted to show that you can still live a full and vigorous life. You can\u2019t be so scared of dying you become afraid of living.<\/p>\n

\u2018Many people are still working, muddling through. They have to. They don\u2019t tell anyone about their diagnosis because they\u2019re frightened of the reaction; scared, too, of losing their job. And lots of employers are not equipped to keep them in work. But how about saying, \u201cWhat can we do to help you work?\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

She reels off the list of complementary therapies she has alongside her chemo and targeted hormone treatment \u2013 massages, acupuncture, exercise classes, nutritional advice \u2013 and points out: \u2018It\u2019s less likely you\u2019ll be admitted to A&E and you can keep working and paying taxes rather than drawing benefits and sitting at home being depressed.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Trisha <\/p>\n

Trisha has just completed a nine-day stint in ITV\u2019s Celebrity Big Brother House, making her the first ever contestant to enter the house while undergoing palliative care for stage four breast cancer<\/p>\n

\"Trisha's <\/p>\n

Trisha’s appearance on the reality TV show was testament to her determination to wring every drop of joy out of the life she has left<\/p>\n

She is crisp, authoritative; hard-wired to come up with practical solutions. But I wonder \u2013 aside from her determination to obliterate \u2018terminal\u2019 from the national lexicon: \u2018I\u2019m not about to hit the buffers yet,\u2019 she smiles \u2013 if she actually enjoyed being in the Big Brother house.<\/p>\n

\u2018Oh, it was like being paid to go on a holiday: it was captivity that offered a level of freedom from everyday life. I was a child again absolved of all grown-up duties, and who gets that in life? You have food, play time, a wide cross-section of people to talk to.\u2019<\/p>\n

But there was one unexpected corollary of her openness about her cancer diagnosis and treatment: she did not solicit their confidences, but her housemates wanted to tell her all about their families\u2019 tales of sadness and loss.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s life. It touches everyone and there were some very moving moments, but I genuinely didn\u2019t realise the impact it would have on me. I got to the point when I had to cut a few people short because part of me was screaming in the dark.<\/p>\n

\u2018I rang my daughter Billie and said, \u201cI\u2019m burnt out with other people\u2019s grief. It\u2019s just too close to home.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

London-born Trisha, 67, lives in Connecticut in the US \u2013 her home since 2012 \u2013 with her fourth husband, Allen. She is unforthcoming about his surname, age and profession, although she tells me he is a businessman and had been a widower raising his children alone before they met in 2017, thrown together by chance when they were \u2018table fillers\u2019 seated next to each other at a ball.<\/p>\n

A gentle, bespectacled, scholarly looking man, he arrives at the London hotel where we\u2019re chatting after our interview.<\/p>\n

\u2018He drives me to most of my chemos, he advocates for me, he comes to doctors\u2019 appointments because I only take in one word in three,\u2019 she says. They are kind, affectionate: she is wearing comfy woolly slippers he brought her, and he reaches to hug her before he shakes my hand.<\/p>\n

\"Trisha <\/p>\n

Trisha Goddard and husband Allen, whom she described as her ‘rock’,\u00a0on their wedding day<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s an over-used phrase, but he\u2019s my rock,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

I wonder how he greeted the news that his wife had decided to fly to the UK \u2013 midway through a \u2018brutal\u2019 course of chemo \u2013 to take part in a reality TV programme.<\/p>\n

\u2018He needed convincing,\u2019 she says with a smile. \u2018He was worried; scared for me. But he knew better than to say, \u201cDon\u2019t think of it\u201d. Actually he was more concerned when I said I was going back to ice skating \u2013 although I do wear a padded suit.\u2019<\/p>\n

She took part in ITV\u2019s Dancing on Ice in 2020 and has resumed the sport despite the fall two years later which shattered her hip and disclosed the spread of the cancer, which had first appeared in 2008.<\/p>\n

Both her medical team in the US and the Big Brother care team liaised to make her appearance on the show possible.<\/p>\n

It only adds to my awe-struck esteem for her, to learn that she flew 3,000 miles to Britain the day after her last chemo.<\/p>\n

\u2018I went to the infusion centre on April 1. I call it my spa room,\u2019 she laughs. \u2018I had a soupcon of chemo and targeted hormone therapy, one little bag after the other. I have a port catheter [she shows me the dint in her chest where the tube is lodged] and I get plugged in.\u2019<\/p>\n

She lightens the mood by miming a comic dance, as if she\u2019s having an electric shock. Then she admits: \u2018It\u2019s a brutal regime but I went into it fit, thank you God. It takes about two-and-a-half hours and it\u2019s all on Medicare\u2019 \u2013 the federal health insurance programme for the over-65s.<\/p>\n

\"Both <\/p>\n

Both her medical team in the US and the Big Brother care team liaised to make her appearance on the show possible<\/p>\n

\u2018Then the next day I flew over to the UK. I had to wear compression garments \u2013 tights and a sleeve on my arm \u2013 and I took disinfectant wipes for the seats, tables, armrest and loo. My oncologist is brilliant, a rock star, and so sweet. He said, \u201cI\u2019m going to help you do this because your message [of hope] is so great.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

She had an ultrasound scan when she got to England to check she had not developed a deep vein thrombosis \u2013 she hadn\u2019t \u2013 and a medical.<\/p>\n

She was also accorded a few special privileges in the house. \u2018I thought I was going to get \u2013 ooh \u2013 a bed with a curtain but amazingly they decided I should have my own bedroom, loo and bathroom which I genuinely wasn\u2019t expecting. I was blown away by that. And they gave me my own low-fat food in a little fridge.<\/p>\n

\u2018I missed out on not being in the main bedroom \u2013 I got a bit of FOMO.\u2019<\/p>\n

I ask what was in the cocktail of pills and potions she brought with her. \u2018Oh, gawd,\u2019 she cries. \u2018Let\u2019s talk about constipation!<\/p>\n

\u2018I had to take poo powder three times a day. It\u2019s one of the side-effects of chemo. I also had a<\/p>\n

prescribed dose of calcium, and so many people will say they\u2019re tired with chemo. Not moi! I take<\/p>\n

Ritalin [a stimulant typically prescribed for ADHD]. It stops exhaustion.<\/p>\n

\u2018This is what upsets me: there are so many people with cancer, so many suffering so much they can\u2019t function, but side-effects can be treated. Nausea? I do a super mild wibbly-wobbly workout with weights that helps my balance. The hospital doesn\u2019t even need to give me anti-nausea meds.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sound therapy can also help. And it\u2019s free. The NHS would<\/p>\n

save money.\u2019 She is evangelical about these benefits. She hopes to meet Health Secretary Wes Streeting \u2013 who was diagnosed with kidney cancer but is now cancer-free \u2013 to discuss these ideas.<\/p>\n

\u2018I remember getting a call from palliative care. I thought, \u201cOh my God, does that mean I\u2019m dying?\u201d No! It\u2019s symptom care for the management of cancer. I have a pain in my hip. I get steroid injections for it.\u2019<\/p>\n

She is philosophical to the point of cheerfulness, but does she ever cry? \u2018Some poor bat had to become a statistic and sometimes I ask, \u201cWhy does it have to be me?\u201d And I scream at God.<\/p>\n

\u2018But I\u2019m lucky, with treatment, the cancer has shrunk. I can never say I\u2019m cured, but for now I\u2019m good-ish.\u2019<\/p>\n

Her life has been a series of learning curves, of setbacks so catastrophic a less resilient soul would have crumbled. Not Trisha.<\/p>\n

I last interviewed her in 2007. She had already endured much: her former first husband\u2019s death from Aids \u2013 she suspects he was homosexual \u2013 her second\u2019s blatant infidelity with a work colleague.<\/p>\n

Then pressures of work and single motherhood resulted in what she called an \u2018epic breakdown\u2019. She attempted suicide but recovered, realising how much her two young children needed her. Later she discovered the man who had raised her, and beat her as a child, was not actually her dad.<\/p>\n

It barely needs articulating that she has more grit than an industrial spreader, but this is leavened by warmth and approachability: small wonder interviewees have always opened up to her. She is also shrewd and forthright: cancer has taught her who her real friends are; the best of them, journalist Sarah Standing \u2013 daughter of actress Nanette Newman \u2013 who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma just before lockdown.<\/p>\n

\u2018Darling Sarah!\u2019 she cries. \u2018I tend not to do snotty-nosed snivelling. One never wants to dump everything on loved ones. But we\u2019ve done some crying together. She rings me when I\u2019m shaking like a chihuahua. She rings me from the loo. Sometimes we\u2019ve sung nursery rhymes to each other.\u2019<\/p>\n

But set against this deep loyalty are the disappearing friends: \u2018They say. \u201cJust call if you need anything\u201d and then you don\u2019t hear from them at all. You think: did I upset them?<\/p>\n

\u2018There are people in my life who know what has happened and never even ask how you are. Anyone who is out there, who has done that to someone: are you scared it\u2019s catching?\u2019<\/p>\n

She is irritated too by other cancer terminology. \u2018Battling. I hate that word! It then leads on to \u201cwinning\u201d or \u201closing\u201d and you are painted as weak if you\u2019ve lost the battle.\u2019<\/p>\n

However, she reserves the full force of her contempt for those who offer inexpert, unsolicited and frankly dangerous advice.<\/p>\n

\u2018You hear them say, \u201cIf you eat lots of garlic, it wards off cancer.\u201d Bunkum of course. Don\u2019t ever take advice from anyone except your qualified medical team.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve heard people say, \u201cI can\u2019t believe that you\u2019re so stupid as to have chemo. It\u2019s not natural.\u201d That gets me so mad. A lot of these people who hand out advice, when they get a diagnosis themselves, eye of newt goes straight out of the window and they rush for the chemo.\u2019<\/p>\n

We track back to the July day in 2022 when she learnt the breast cancer had returned. She\u2019d been cleaning the steps to her front door and she sprinted up them, slipped and landed face down.<\/p>\n

\u2018The pain was excruciating. My hip was completely shattered. I held on to the banister. I knew if I let go and fell I\u2019d be dead. What saved me was my Alexa device. I managed to shout to it and asked it to call my husband who then called my neighbour.<\/p>\n

\u2018She came round and helped me \u2013 she\u2019s a physio \u2013 and when the paramedics arrived they worried I\u2019d have a heart attack. At the hospital they injected me with all kinds of drugs. Then an intern wandered in and said they\u2019d found a cancerous tumour.\u2019<\/p>\n

The only criticism she has of the hospital is the blundering nature of this revelation.<\/p>\n

\u2018I said, \u201cAm I going to die?\u201d I can\u2019t remember what happened after that. Then a bone oncologist told me I hadn\u2019t got bone cancer. It was metastatic breast cancer and he handed me over to my current oncologist, Dr Lo, who is brilliant.\u2019<\/p>\n

For two years she hid the fact that the cancer had returned from everyone except close friends and family. \u2018I said to Allen, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m so sorry to do this to you again\u201d \u2013 his first wife had died of cancer \u2013 and he has gone above and beyond.\u2019<\/p>\n

And of course for her children Billie, 35, and Madison, 30, \u2018this wasn\u2019t their first rodeo with their mum having cancer \u2013 and working all the way through it\u2019.<\/p>\n

For the first four-and-a-half months she was having chemotherapy every week, while still doing regular TV work. Chemo sessions are now every three weeks and she flies back home for her next treatment at the end of the month.<\/p>\n

She came to the UK in May 2023 to commentate on the King\u2019s Coronation for CNN, still harbouring her secret. She tells how, when she was on a US talk show, she suffered a nose bleed on air as a result of the chemotherapy.<\/p>\n

\u2018People probably thought I\u2019d had too much coke \u2013 although I\u2019ve never taken cocaine \u2013 but employers are probably better equipped to deal with cocaine addicts than people with metastatic cancer,\u2019 she adds wryly.<\/p>\n

She quashed any such rumours by going public with her diagnosis last year. Charities \u2013 including Breast Cancer Now and Macmillan \u2013 have applauded her for going into the Big Brother House.<\/p>\n

Her next ambition is to host a documentary in which she talks to people with late stage illnesses, discusses the problems they face and the means of overcoming them.<\/p>\n

\u2018There are people with life-limiting illnesses who are living with more vigour than those who take their health for granted. If you hear the sound of a ticking clock you tend not to sweat the small stuff.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sitting down and ruminating is not something I\u2019ve ever done, and I\u2019ve no intention of starting now.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Please don\u2019t apply the word \u2018terminal\u2019 to Trisha Goddard\u2019s cancer. Life-limiting, incurable, stage four, metastatic \u2013 because it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[92,368,105,208,257,1740,1741,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-51475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-femail","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-itv","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-michael-fabricant","14":"tag-trisha-goddard","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114402943597665966","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}