Four months after her diagnosis of incurable cancer, Rachael Bland tweeted: “In the words of the legendary Frank S – I’m afraid the time has come,” she began, her customary warmth still apparent. Then came the honesty: “And suddenly. I’m told I’ve only got days. It’s very surreal … Au revoir, my friends.”
There are people who do extraordinary things in the face of serious illness and then there is Bland, the Cardiff-born BBC journalist who responded to her diagnosis by creating a podcast, You, Me & the Big C, for BBC Radio 5 Live. Created with fellow cancer bloggers Deborah James and Lauren Mahon, the podcast has been a tour de force since it started in March. It explores the issues surrounding cancer in richly human, often blackly humorous detail; patients and medical professionals have sung its praises. In every swear word, daft anecdote or lewd question about sperm production put to an Olympian athlete recovering from testicular cancer, here are three bright, funny women resolutely being themselves, helping others while their worlds shifted uncontrollably around them.
Normalising discussions of cancer was Bland’s mission from the start. “We wanted to create a space where you feel like you’re sitting down having a cup of tea, talking about it like it’s EastEnders,” she explained when I interviewed her in June, only days after she had announced her terminal diagnosis. I was nervous to meet her, but we had a ball. “When you have a conversation about cancer,” she told me, almost to comfort me, “you normalise it.”
Above all, Bland reminded me how social media can still be a huge force for good. She had found personal comfort from people sharing their cancer stories, so she continued to share hers. Her treatments, her days out with her husband and young son – and her race to write a memoir for him – were all documented with purpose and beauty. Her last post underlined that her podcast will continue, with James and Mahon in charge.
To think that it had not even begun in January – when Bland took the idea to 5 Live – is staggering. In just eight months she has changed the lives of so many.
