Dame Esther Rantzen has shared a candid update about her short life expectancy, almost three years after revealing her stage four lung cancer diagnosis.
The 85-year-old former broadcaster – also known for founding charities such as Childline and The Silver Line – first opened up about her now terminal illness in January 2023.
Alongside her treatment, she has talked about how she has considered assisted dying (she joined the Swiss assisted dying non-profit Dignitas in 2023) and has been an outspoken supporter of the Assisted Dying Bill being debated in England and Wales.
If passed into law, the bill – which is currently under scrutiny in the House of Lords – would allow terminally ill adults in the UK to legally be able to die with the assistance of medical staff, after receiving the agreement of two doctors and a High Court judge.
Now, in a new column, Dame Rantzen has shared that the ‘new miracle drug’ she has been using for her cancer treatment has ‘stopped working’ with an imminent scan scheduled to reveal how far her disease has spread.
She continued in The Observer: ‘I’m definitely not going to live long enough to see the assisted dying bill become law.
What are the symptoms of lung cancer
Lung cancer is one of the most common and serious types of cancer. More than 43,000 people are diagnosed with the condition every year in the UK,’ according to the NHS website.
You should see a GP if you have the below symptoms:
- a persistent cough
- coughing up blood
- persistent breathlessness
- unexplained tiredness and weight loss
- an ache or pain when breathing or coughing
‘So if my life becomes unbearably painful and I long for a quick, pain-free death, I will have to go to Dignitas in Switzerland, alone.’
She then aimed fire at the long list of amendments to the bill being proposed in the House of Lords, claiming: ‘The real motive behind these 1,000 amendments is not to improve the bill but to block it.’
The former That’s Life! presenter shared that she had been told ‘so many tragic stories’ of patients ‘begging for help to die’ and families ‘feeling helpless facing this terrible suffering.’
‘No change in the law can come in time for me. I always knew that,’ she concluded, reiterating her plea for ‘future generations be given the confidence and hope of a fast, pain-free death when they need it most.’
In November, Dame Rantzen revealed she had planned to bring up her family Christmas so she would be ‘alive to enjoy it’ and that she had been diagnosed with a ‘completely different’ cancer recently.
This latest diagnosis required her to be treated ‘with chemotherapy and being zapped with radiotherapy’.
At the time, she also shared her anxiety around scan updates.
‘Since I have no idea what is actually happening inside my own body, but every scan, every three or four months, carries with it the possibility of bad news, as the date approaches, my anxiety levels rise – and we cancer patients have christened it scanxiety,’ she said.
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