TV and Radio star Jamie Theakston has revealed how a sore throat – and a hug made him realise he had potentially lige threatening cancer. The Heart radio’s breakfast show presenter was hit by a ‘rare’ cancer and his listeners were worried by a change in tone in his voice.
He explained in an interview with the Sunday Times, that a hug from fellow star Davina McCall also gave him a red flag something was seriously wrong. Jamie explained that listeners had flagged their concerns: “You do the show for 20 years, and you get a sore throat and it comes and goes, But there were a couple of listeners who said, ‘You really need to get it checked.’ And I guess in many ways that sort of saved my life. Without being too dramatic about it.”
On the Davina hug he added: “She’s a very huggy person, Davina. She gave me a big hug around my neck and I remember thinking it felt quite uncomfortable. I think she thought, oh God, I’ve done something terrible. But in fact, she just highlighted the problem.”
Jamie explained his wife Sophie said he was croaking – so he went oto his GP and was then referred to a specialist who quickly diagnosed cancer with a laryngoscopy. Jamie said he was stunned: “Then he said, ‘Oh yeah, that looks like cancer.’ I just couldn’t believe it. I’d fully anticipated he would say, ‘Oh well, look, we’ll give you some antibiotics.’ But he said, ‘We need to get you scanned now.’ ”
“Laryngeal cancer is extremely rare. My doctor said he’d never in his 40-odd years of practice come across anyone who had it. Neck cancer is quite common but cancer on your vocal fold is very rare. And I mean, the irony of doing what I do… You couldn’t make it up.”
His first operation, privately done at the Princess Grace Hospital in central London, to remove the lesion was successful, but the biopsies could not 100 per cent confirm all the cancer cells had been removed. Jamie explained that he chose surgery ahead of radiotherapy – he had to go back for a second op to have more tissue removed followed by a third surgery as scar tissue was impacting his vocal cord and could potentially have ended his broadcasting career.
He said: “I was frustrated because I just wanted to get back to work. I remember reading an interview Amanda [Holden] had given saying, ‘We hope to have him back by Christmas.’ I had thought, way before Christmas! So the second operation put us back a bit. And then we found that during the healing process, some scar tissue was touching the other vocal cord. So I had to go back and have a third surgery. We were happy that the cancer was clear but to allow my voice to operate, they had to remove the scar tissue, which unfortunately had formed in a place where we didn’t want it forming.”
Jamie was unable to speak at that time and added: “Not talking is a weird thing because, you know, the phone rings, you can’t answer the phone. So you can feel quite lonely.” He is now cancer free and the odds of it returning are “very low”.
On his road to recovery Jamie underwent voice therapy. He added: “It has certainly made me stronger. I felt a lot wiser, because I finally understood what mattered in life.”