BBC Podcast host Deborah James recalls near-death experience as she suffers with incurable cancer 

BBC podcaster Deborah James has revealed for the first time the horrifying extent of the medical emergency that nearly killed her last month. 

Deborah, 40, from London a former deputy head teacher turned cancer campaigner, has been living with incurable bowel cancer for five years and has documented the journey on BBC podcast You, Me and the Big C. 

In her latest column for The Sun published today, she reveals how she said goodye to her two children Hugo, 14, and Eloise, 12, after starting to vomit blood at home, and is now suffering from PTSD. 

‘I can’t describe to you the trauma that now exists, like a broken horror film in my head, of saying goodbye to my children in that split second,’ she said. 

The mother-of-two said she’s always known that her cancer would catch up with her, and said that she believed she’d die after running out of treatment options, but had never imagined a dramatic medical emergency would end her live.  

The wife and mother of Hugo, 14, and Eloise, 12, pictured, has been open about the ups and downs of her cancer treatment, both and and out of the hospital

At 6pm on January 6, Deborah suffered a medical emergency just after getting off the phone to Toney Livesey live on BBC Radio 5. 

It was the day before she was due an urgent operation to try and unblock her bile duct after blood tests revealed she was suffering from liver failure, stopping her from having further chemotherapy.

But after hanging up from live radio, she began to feel unwell, before running to her bathroom to vomit – with a scary sight of large bits of bright red blood coming out. 

She said she immediately called her husband, Seb, 42, who was at a physio appointment nearby, and he rushed back to see her.

As she waited, the vomiting got far worse, with larger amounts of bright blood coming out, and she says she must have lost around a litre-and-a-half of blood. 

It was so bad, and full of large blood clots, that she says she felt she was vomiting up tissue.  

In her column with The Sun, she explained that she was due an urgent operation to try and unblock her bile duct as blood tests revealed she was suffering from liver failure, stopping her from having further chemotherapy in the new year (pictured receiving cancer treatment)

She then called herself an ambulance while feeling herself fall into a blackout state. 

The mother pleaded for help from the phone operator, something she says used every ounce of life she had left in her to do.

Deborah’s daughter, Elouise, 12, was also screaming down the phone to ask someone to save her mother.

Once husband Seb arrived home, to find Deborah in a dazed state, he and his wife got a huge shock when the 999 handler said that they would have to wait for 30 minutes for their ambulance.

She explained that it felt as though they were ‘leaving her for dead’, and had her husband not been there, she doesn’t think she would be alive. 

And this was the moment she realised it was time to say goodbye to her children, for what she believed would be the last time she’d see them.

She wrote: ‘I knew, or at least I thought, I would never see my children again.

Seb rushed his wife to A&E at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital as Deborah was left with her thoughts, believing she would never see her home or children again.

She told her family she loved them as everything went grey, but recalls worrying that she’d be written off as a cancer patient, at stage four, who is ‘dying anyway’.

During the journey, she somehow managed to give Nico Fotiadis a call, her interventional radiologist who was set and ready to do her operation, lined up for the next day. He made his way over from the Royal Marsden Hospital.

Deborah was live on BBC Radio 5 just before she began to feel unwell, before running to her bathroom to vomit – with a scary sight of large bits of bright red blood coming out – but the ambulance wait time was 30 minutes so husband Seb took matters into his own hands

After getting put straight into resus, she says she avoided thinking about her children because it would upset her too much.

Nico arrived to tell Deborah, along with the lead doctor, to say they believed that either her portal vein had ruptured or her oesophagal varices had haemorrhaged. She later found out the both were true.

The 40-year-old podcaster spent four days in critical care, then two weeks as an in-patient to get back to normal, and get back to her cancer treatment. 

Seb rushed his loved one to A&E at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital as Deborah was left with her thoughts, believing she would never see her home or children again

Last week, she recalled the scary events in early January on an Instagram post.

It read: ‘It’s been the scariest time of my life – of my whole families lives.’

She continued: ‘I don’t even know where to begin to thank every single medical person who saved me, who got me through the days, the nights, who did all they can to give me more time. Thank you doesn’t even touch the sides.

‘I’m unsure right now of my next steps, but I have options. And I have to recover first. Get some normality, see the outside world! Eat! 

‘But right now, I’m back home, a place I left not thinking I’d see it again. For that, I feel beyond greatful.’

Deborah went on to share a series of images and clips as she was discharged from hospital, including as she was wheeled along a hospital corridor and having an IV canular removed.

Deborah shared a selection of clips as she was discharged from hospital, but said she is ‘not out of the woods yet’

The mother-of-two also posted a snapshot of her dog as she relaxed on her sofa at home, saying: ‘I have to say I’m shattered. Think I have weeks of sleep to catch up on.

‘And I’m still taking lots of meds. Already had three naps today. And that’s after waking up at 10am!’ 

Last week, Deborah said there had been ‘a lot of tears’ for days while she was in hospital, saying: ‘Today has been one of those days where I feel like we are going round in circles. It’s the small things that break you sometimes when you are in hospital for too long.

BBC podcast host Deborah James, who has incurable bowel cancer, has said the ‘trauma’ of nearly dying in an acute medical emergency is still ‘very raw and real’ as she returned home after three weeks in hospital

‘It’s the failed canulars, being unable to move freely, not feeling like you are making progress, the daily worry about each test, the daily analytics of every bodyily function.

‘Wondering if you will ever get a break. Or that golden window for me to get treatment. 

‘I’m just in a place where I’ve been able to get the big cracks together (just), but I realised as I started my day off sobbing at our lack of being able to get blood from me, that underneath I’m still smashed to pieces.

Deborah revealed on Instagram she had been discharged as an in-patient, and said it had been ‘the scariest period’ her life

‘Tomorrow will be a new day, and with that we will find strength to carry on.’

However earlier she updated fans to say that she had been told her  bloods had ‘finally’ improved. 

Two weeks ago, Deborah filmed herself walking down a hospital hallway. She said she is ‘making progress’ and tasking her recovery step by step after enduring the ‘hardest, most heartbreaking and scariest’ period of her cancer battle in the last week, which has involved three operations and ‘a lot more procedures’ to come.

‘It’s never been so hard to muster the strength and conviction to do so. I’ve had four operations this week (with more to come), am beyond shattered with a very weak body,’ she revealed.

In the video, Deborah can be seen walking tentatively in a hospital hallway.

‘But somehow my body is still ploughing on. Sometimes all we can do is take things step by step. The nurses and doctors are being incredible – I’ve cried on pretty much everyone that pops their head around the door,’ she went on in her post.

‘I’m making progress, it’s slow, but steady. I’m still being monitored very closely. No idea what the next plan is- it’s just taking things bit by bit.’