Kitabı oku: «Forever in My Heart: The Story of My Battle Against Cancer»

Chapter One The Horrible News
18th August 2008

I’d been in the Indian Big Brother house for three days and was really enjoying myself. They were a nice bunch of people–a famous chef, actors and actresses, dancers, even an MP–and I think I was getting on well with all of them. It was early evening and I was just on my way to the kitchen to get something to eat when the Big Brother voice boomed out telling me to go to the Diary Room.

Off I went, thinking they’d be giving me another task or whatever. The worst I could think would happen was that the Indian public hated me and had decided to vote me off already. I sat in the big leather chair in the Diary Room and one of the production team passed me their mobile phone.

‘What’s going on?’ I said. ‘Hello?’

It was my agent, Mark Thomas, calling from London.

‘Jade,’ he said, gently. ‘Your consultant needs to talk to you. It’s about your test results and it’s very, very urgent.’

I thought it was a wind-up. ‘You’re kidding me?’ I said. But I could tell from Mark’s voice that it was something serious.

‘It’s potentially bad news so he’s going to ring you himself,’ he replied. ‘Just stay there and I’ll get him to give you a call.’

I knew straight away what it must be about. I’d had ongoing problems with my periods for years by this stage, then on the 2nd of August, a Saturday night, I collapsed at home bleeding really heavily. I called an ambulance and they took me to Harlow Hospital.

No-one knew what was wrong and they kept me in for days doing loads of tests.

I had blood tests and a scan and they all came up clear.

Then on the Wednesday they did some laser surgery. I’ve had this done twice before, so I knew what to expect. It’s still not nice, though, I’m telling you!

Then I got a call on the Thursday from Mark.

‘Guess what?’ he says. ‘Indian Big Brother want you in the house!’

I was well excited. And Shilpa Shetty was hosting it, a real sign of how things had turned around for me. But of course Mark was worried about my health.

‘Make sure the docs say you’re okay to do it,’ he said.

I told them I’d need to be away for three months and they said it was fine. ‘Take some painkillers and don’t worry,’ they said. I had a few more test results still to come back but no one seemed worried about them.

Sitting there in the Big Brother house waiting for the phone call, I realised it must be to do with that. It’s the only health problem I had. What on earth had they found now?

I had to wait a whole half hour. I just sat there, fidgeting, wondering if this was a weird joke. Big Brother sometimes plays tricks on you–it’s part of what you sign up for–but I didn’t think they would do something like this. Could it be someone from home playing a practical joke? If it was, what a horrible one!

Finally the mobile phone rang again and the production assistant handed it to me.

A doctor came on the phone and introduced himself, then he launched straight in with the news.

‘Jade, we’ve looked at your biopsy and there are severe abnormalities. You need to fly home immediately,’ he said.

‘You what?!’ I replied.

‘You have cancer, Jade. It’s real and it’s serious.’

He carried on talking but I couldn’t hear anything any more. There was a buzzing in my ears. My legs turned to mush and I started crying. Really crying. I sank down onto the carpet.

The only thought in my head was, ‘My boys! Oh my god, I’m going to die.’ I just heard the word ‘cancer’ and thought ‘this is it!’

My tummy felt so sick, I thought I was going to throw up all over the floor.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked, and he told me again I needed to get myself home. That I needed treatment. That it was urgent.

When he hung up I sat there feeling lonelier than I’ve ever felt in my life. I was in Mumbai, in a house full of strangers, and had just been told the most horrible news. I was a million miles away from my home and everyone I loved.

It was only then that I remembered I was on a TV programme. It’s not the normal way to be told you have cancer. But then, what is normal in my life? To be honest, that seemed like the least of my worries at the time.

Someone pushed the phone into my hand and I spoke to my agent again.

‘Jade, you’ll be okay, love,’ he said, trying to calm me down.

‘I can’t believe this, Mark,’ I sobbed. ‘Is it some kind of sick wind-up?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I’ve checked the doctor out and he has treated you in Harlow before. I asked him if it was life or death and he said yes, you had to be told. You need to come home and we’ll get a second opinion straight away.’

I just couldn’t stop sobbing. So many thoughts were rushing in. I had no control.

My boys! My mum! Jack! I can’t die! I don’t want to, I’ve got too much to live for. Oh my god…

Cancer equalled death to me. I’m only twenty-seven, this can’t be happening.

I tried to dry my eyes with bits of tissue someone gave me.

‘Don’t tell anyone until I’ve had a chance to let your family know,’ said Mark. ‘I’ll call your mum and Jack as soon as we get off the line. Do you want to leave straight away? Or are you able to go back into the house and get your things?’

‘I’m okay,’ I sobbed. ‘I’ll go back in. Will you check up on that doctor again? And get a second opinion for me?’

Being on Bigg Boss, the Indian Big Brother, was supposed to be my Big Comeback–my way of getting over all that controversy two years before when I went on Celebrity Big Brother and had a falling out with Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, so it had seemed like a great idea. The money was good and I needed it because I had spent the last year living off my savings.

I never expected to win or anything but I’d wanted the people of India to see what I was really like. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

Things other doctors had told me were running through my head. They’d said they thought the heavy bleeding I’d had was just a bad period. Or stress. How could it be cancer? How could no one have seen this? How long had this cancer thing been growing silently inside of me? My whole body was shaking with fear.

I was more scared than I’d ever been in my life.

I left the Diary Room and went back into the house. I was planning to get my clothes and stuff but I could hardly see because of my swollen red eyes.

The other contestants knew straight away something was wrong. It was pretty obvious because I was sobbing so much. I went and sat on the sofa, trying to take it in.

They tried to comfort me, being really nice. Someone brought me a glass of water and someone else found some tissues, but I was in my own bubble.

I said over and over: ‘I can’t tell you until I tell my family first.’

But you know me–I can’t keep anything to myself. Even this. Eventually I caved in and told them.

‘I’ve got cancer!’ I cried, the words sounding strange. Everyone was really shocked. I went to the bedroom, and just sobbed and sobbed.

I’ve got cancer.

I got my things together somehow then I was taken to a side door and shown out by the production team. I hardly had any time to say goodbye to the other contestants. I was just rushed away.

A car took me to a hotel somewhere. I spent the night on my own, constantly on the phone trying to ring people. I was on the other side of the world and I needed my friends and loved ones so badly.

First I phoned my mum. She was staying with a friend in a caravan and the signal was really bad.

When she answered the phone her silence told me she already knew something. ‘Mum,’ I sobbed. ‘Mum, I’ve got cancer. Mum?’

But all I got was…nothing. Total silence. She couldn’t speak. She quite often gets like this in difficult situations–she just freezes up–but now wasn’t the time for it.

‘Mum,’ I shouted. ‘Stop it! Stop! I need you. I need you more than ever. Come on, be a mum.’

I grew more and more angry as she carried on saying nothing. Not a word.

‘You’ve never been a mother to me!’ I screamed and slammed the phone down.

I was so angry. Why couldn’t she just put me first for once? It wasn’t about her–it was about me. I needed her to be strong for me, but she couldn’t do it, not then.

It had always just been Mum and me so I understood why this news would shatter her world. She split with my druggie dad when I was about a year old. She found a gun under my cot that she knew must have been his. She kicked him out straight away and he ended up in and out of prison until he died when I was twenty-three. So it’s only ever been the two of us, but our relationship has had its ups and downs over the years, as anyone who has read my autobiography will know! Let’s just say that a lot of the time I’ve had to be the mother rather than her.

I came off the phone seething that she couldn’t find some words to comfort me at a time like this. But it was devastating news for her as well and I didn’t want us to fall out.

Fifteen minutes later I rang back. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I am really sorry.’

‘So am I, Jade,’ she sobbed. ‘Ring me when you get home.’

I lay down and cried, feeling so alone.

Next I rang Danielle, a good mate of mine for the last seven years. We’re both single mums and often hang out together. She was on holiday in Portugal.

‘I’ve got cancer,’ I said as soon as she answered the phone.

‘Oh, Jade!’ she cried, really upset. ‘I can’t believe it! What have they said to you? How serious is it?’

I’d thought I wasn’t really hearing the doctor’s words in the Diary Room in my shocked state, but something he’d said came back to me. ‘They say it’s grade two, whatever that means.’

Danielle was really sweet but the fact that she sounded so upset was upsetting me as well. I hung up, promising to call her as soon as I got home.

Next I called Jack, my on-again–off-again boyfriend of the last three years. Mark had already told him, so at least he didn’t find out from the TV or something.

‘You’re going to be okay,’ he said. But how did anyone know that?

‘I’ve got cancer,’ I kept repeating over and over. I think I was just trying to get my head around it.

‘Doctors can do all sorts of things these days,’ said Jack. ‘They’ve caught it early on. You can deal with this. I’ll be there for you every step of the way.’

We talked for a few hours and he really helped to calm me down. After we came off the phone I managed to get a bit of sleep, which by that stage I really needed. But when I wakened in the early hours of the morning, it was the first thought in my head: ‘I’ve got cancer.’

19th August 2008

I got on the Virgin flight home to Heathrow just feeling numb. The Big Brother producers sent someone from the team with me, but I didn’t know him so I had no one to talk to in the airport or on the flight.

Usually when I sit down on a plane I’m excited to see what films are showing and what’s going to be on the menu. I love those little tiny portions of airline food set out on a tray, with the packets of salt and pepper and the freshening wipe. Now I had no interest in anything.

I didn’t want to smile or chat to anyone because all I could think of was that C-word.

I have cancer.

I wanted to get home and for my mum to rub my head the way she sometimes did and tell me everything would be okay.

I tried to close my eyes and think of my boys. Most of all I longed to touch their soft skin and kiss their cheeks so hard. I wanted to hold them like I’d never done before.

I tried to just listen to the hum of the plane engines and ignore the sound of babies crying and moody passengers asking for more drinks or extra blankets.

I didn’t want anything now except my family.

I pushed a pillow up against the window, closed my eyes and thought of Jack.

Imagining him holding me and telling me it was all a dream made me feel a bit better.

As all these thoughts were rushing through my mind, I wanted to scream ‘Why me?’

Just when I was getting on with my life and putting all the bad things behind me. My mum becoming a crack addict when I was eighteen; my dad’s horrible death of a heroin overdose in a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant; my bad relationships; the racism row over my argument with Shilpa Shetty. Why is the Big Man in the Sky giving me another challenge?

Then I suddenly got this really weird feeling.

I don’t know how to explain it but I thought that if my life was in danger, it was about time I sorted it all out. It made me want to do special things.

Like make peace with my dad. He’s dead, so why do I still hate him? I decided I would go and put some flowers on his grave.

I wanted to see my half-brothers: my dad’s son Miles, who I’d never even met before, and my mum’s son Brett.

I wanted truly, properly to forgive my mum. To tell her none of the past mattered any more.

Bobby and Freddy were only five and three but I decided I wanted to take my two special boys to a poor country and let them see that what they have–all the toys and holidays and the nice home–is not like that for everyone. I wanted them to appreciate the things we had.

And, for me this is weird, I wanted to reach out somehow and find a religion.

I never listened in my RE lessons at school–or any lessons at school for that matter–and I don’t know much about God and religious stuff. Churches always seemed like a place for other people.

Now I was forced to think about dying I wanted to understand about living. For I could suddenly see that despite everything I’ve had–like my kids, houses, money and fame–I hadn’t really deeply appreciated it, because I didn’t think I had to.

I didn’t want to feel any more anger. I wanted to be at peace with everyone now.

I sat and thought about the list of things I wanted to do as the plane carried me back home to my family thousands of miles away. I had no idea how long I might have to do them all so I’d have to get started straight away. Just in case.