Dame Deborah James opened up about the toll her bowel cancer treatment was taking on her marriage in a new documentary.
The mother-of-two – who passed away last June at the age of 40 – married banker Sebastien Bowen, 42, in 2008 and the couple lived in West London with their children Hugo, 15, and Eloise, 13.
After being diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in 2016, the former deputy headteacher began her BowelBabe blog and went on to amass almost one million Instagram followers.
The new BBC2 documentary Bowelbabe: In Her Own Words – which airs at 9pm on 14 April – follows the final five years of Deborah’s life as she underwent multiple rounds of chemotherapy and raised over £11m for charity.
During the 80-minute documentary, Deborah paid tribute to her husband and expressed how grateful she was for his support in the face of her diagnosis.
The late mother-of-two paid tribute to her husband of 13 years Sebastien in the new BBC2 documentary Bowelbabe: In Her Own Words
During the recording of one of the You, Me and the Big C podcast episodes, Deborah admits: ‘The thing that I forget sometimes – because my husband said this before – is that there are two people going through this.
‘One moment I’m vomiting and crying in pain or complaining in the dark depths of [thinking] “oh I hate cancer!”
‘And then the next minute, I want to be seen as like… “oh, do you want to have sex with me? Right? I want to be like, “you must desire me!”‘
Discussing the emotional impact her cancer had on her, Deborah added: ‘To be able to flip through all those emotions is a total head-screw!
‘We muddle on through and I do love my husband very much. And actually, I’m just thinking, “I do really hope we can grow old together.”
Later in the documentary, Deborah filmed clips from her February 2022 hospital stay after she suffered a haemorrhage in her West London home.
Imagining her husband’s life without her, Deborah joked that he as an ‘eligible bachelor’ who would likely attract a lot of female attention in future.
But she revealed there were a few women in their lives who she worried would make a beeline for Sebastien and jokingly made a list of their names so he would avoid getting romantically involved with them.
Sebastien pictured taking his late wife Dame Deborah on a day out to Glyndebourne opera house in East Sussex before her death
The former headteacher (pictured right, with children Eloise, 13, Hugo, 15 and husband Sebastien Bowen) was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2016
She said: ‘I had a list of girls that I was like, right, they’re going to pounce on my husband.
‘And so I listed off a couple of names that I said that I would do my damned hardest to come and haunt him if he hooked up with those people, which I thought was absolutely hilarious.’
What’s more, Sebastien also revealed in the documentary that a tube of lipstick was always the ‘first thing’ his wife would ask for after having surgery.
Deborah and Sebastien had only recently rekindled their relationship when the mother-of-two received her life-changing diagnosis.
Before her diagnosis, Deborah was an ambitious deputy head teacher who’d been brought in to turn around a failing comprehensive in Surrey.
It meant she and Sebastien, were always stressed and barely saw each other. ‘It was a classic case of our marriage coming last,’ she told the Daily Mail in 2020.
Sebastien moved out in 2015 and they embarked on an initially ‘acrimonious’ divorce, both hiring lawyers and starting to see other people. Deborah even went on some ‘hideous’ Tinder dates.
They’d already had the decree nisi when they agreed to counselling, not with any hope of a reconciliation, but simply to be on more cordial terms for the children.
Then, to Deborah’s astonishment, the pair began having drinks, then dinner, after the sessions.
In November 2016, they made ‘a big step’ and got back together, only for Deborah to receive her shock diagnosis soon after.
In a touching interview with The Times last year, Sebastien Bowen explained how he and his chldren took care of Deborah at her parents home of Woking in her final days.
The father-of-two said his wife became ‘so weak’ and ‘frustrated’ because she had been ‘fiercely independent’.
Two days before her passing, Hugo ‘helped her get dressed’ and they ‘had a good chat’ before the family had lunch, adding: ‘Deborah was being as bossy as ever, telling us what to do. Then at teatime she started to slip away; she was floating in and out of consciousness.
He went on to say the hospice team arrived at the house and administered a syringe driver to help her manage the pain.
Then, Sebastien described how he slept with her for two days as he held her hand, saying she ‘wasn’t really there.’
He said the family surrounded her to tell her how much they ‘adored’ her, continuing: ‘On Tuesday her eyes opened and she came back into the room for a moment, and then she was gone within 15 minutes, with her sister, mother and father also surrounding her.’
During the interview, Sebastien said it was his late wife’s ‘inner strength’ during her final eight weeks that resulted in the couple being able to still experience ‘some of the most mind-blowing, magical days of both our lives’.
After inspiring the nation, the mother-of-two was presented with a damehood by Prince William shortly after announcing she was receiving end-of-life care.
The Duke of Cambridge, 40, who lost his own mother, Princess Diana, when he was aged just 15, gave Deborah’s two children ‘powerful advice’ about dealing with grief, according to Sebastien.
In January 2020, she had explained that scans showed she had no evidence of cancer in her body at that point – with doctors suggesting she was ‘rewriting the textbook’ – but in April 2021, she revealed her cancer was back again
Despite ongoing cancer treatments over the last few years, Deborah continued living life to the full, holidaying with her family and dancing in the rain
In an appearance on BBC Breakfast, Sebastian said he and his family are now determined to do what they can to make life with the illness easier.
‘There is that strong underlying driver of, let’s prevent it,’ he urged. ‘Hopefully all of us working together…we’ll be able maybe not defeat bowel cancer but at least change the odds that people have.’
Recalling telling his children, on the day of the funeral that ‘if we can get through this together I think we can get through anything’, Sebastian said the message has stayed true for them.
‘I think that’s kind of stuck with us…we’re a pretty strong unit I like to think,’ he added.
Meanwhile Deborah’s children reflected on their mother’s legacy, of which they remain proud today.
‘It’s just amazing to think…well first of all the legacy that it is,’ Hugo, 15, told the programme.
‘And second of all the amount that could be achieved with this 11 million is just, I think beyond what anyone could realise at this point.’
Hugo also said the family still stresses the importance of the ‘rebellious hope’ their mother had always urged everyone to have.
‘It means, regardless of anything, there’s always something that will keep you going,’ he added.
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