Dame Deborah James was sitting up in her hospital bed the last time her friend Emma Campbell saw her. Debs, as Emma knew her, had just months left, having battled stage four bowel cancer for five years.
She was not supposed to have anyone in her room because of the risk of infection but longed to see her friend.
Emma says: “She wasn’t allowed visitors at that point but it was a chemo day for me. I remember her saying, ‘You probably won’t be let in, but try and see if you can’.”
After spotting cameras from a TV chat show in the corridors, Emma managed to masquerade as a member of the film crew and talked her way past the nurse and into Deborah’s room.
Emma says: “I remember walking in and she was sitting there, looking absolutely beautiful.
“She had her silk pillowcase, make-up on, ready to do a bit of filming. I sat on the side of her bed and it wasn’t a heavy chat – it was kind of awkward.
“‘How are you, quick, tell me everything,’ there was a bit of hand-squeezing.
“The words were just tumbling out. And then her oncologist came in and I had to scarper.”
It was the last conversation the two women were able to share face-to-face before the cancer claimed Debs’ life at the age of just 40.
The mum of two died on June 28, 2022, just days after being awarded a damehood by Prince William for her incredible fundraising efforts.
Her Bowelbabe fund hit £1million after she posted a goodbye note on Instagram, then she bravely came back to share her final few days with her friends and followers.
To date, the fund has raised £11.3m for vital research into bowel cancer.
And a documentary, Deborah James : Bowelbabe In Her Own Words, narrated by Deborah in the last months of her life, is sure to give the pot another boost when it airs on Monday.
Her family – children Hugo, 15, and Eloise, 13, and husband Sebastien Bowen – are doing well, says Emma.
She says: “The dignified and composed but very raw way they’ve handled and continue to handle their loss has our jaws on the floor.
“They’re still carrying on, because they know that’s what they have to do. And she’d have been really cross if they hadn’t.”
Emma, a mum of triplets who has been living with breast cancer on and off for 13 years, would spend long days in The Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea, South West London, with Debs during the times their chemotherapy schedules coincided. To take their minds off the discomfort they were in, Deborah would have them singing and dancing through the ward, while connected to their pumps.
Emma says: “I still think now, ‘What Would Debs Do?’ I’m thinking of getting a tattoo of that saying. I still talk to her in my head, especially when I walk up the stone steps to the Marsden.
“The evening we found out she’d died, I remember my reaction was as though it was the biggest shock. I was winded. I remember just breaking down as though it was a bolt from the blue.”
One of the most heart-rending moments of the documentary is when Deborah and son Hugo are seen dancing a waltz together.
The children were used to seeing their mother come home from hospital high on steroids and ready to burn off her excess energy with her “Chemo Dances”.
In the film, Debs says: “Eloise was away camping at the weekend, so Hugo was like, ‘Oh, wait, does that mean I have to do it?’
“He let me upload it – it went a little bit viral with over half a million views.
“The last time we did it, he was half his height. This is what medicine has given me, it’s given me the opportunity to see my son taller than me, and I think that’s incredible.”
While sharing such moving highs, the documentary also shows Deborah at rock bottom, considering giving up her treatment and letting nature take its course.
She says: “I’ve always thought, ‘I’m going to live, I’m going to live, I’m going to live’. But for the first time, that voice in my head is saying, ‘You’re gonna die, you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die’.
“I just need that voice to shut up, because it’s doing my head in.”
One traumatic night, she haemorrhaged at home. There was “blood everywhere” and her daughter was screaming down the phone, ‘You have to help my Mummy’.
Debs says in the film: “All I remember is coming down the stairs and shouting to my children, ‘I love you, I love you forever’.
“I thought I would never see them again. I started to lose consciousness and I have flashbacks of the recovery team putting blood back into me as quickly as possible. I remember coming round and saying, ‘I’m so grateful’. I thought I would be dead. I never planned for it to be like that, I thought I would have a day, a moment, a week to say goodbye, not shout it down the stairs to my children.”
But Deborah rallied and was able to spend her final weeks at her parents’ home in the sun, surrounded by her family. While frail, her determination prevailed and she was able to launch a book, release a Rebellious Hope line of T-shirts with InTheStyle, and partner with Tesco to print the warning signs of bowel cancer on loo roll packaging.
Emma says: “With Debs, one of the many gifts she gave me was this realisation that just because you have cancer, you don’t have to live as though you’re dying. She taught us how to properly live.
“I was at the Marsden a couple of weeks ago for my treatment and I really felt like leaving her a WhatsApp. I still look out for signs from her.
“She was such an inspiration to me and to all of her friends, and we still meet up for meals to share our memories. All of us carry a little bit of Debs with us, wherever we go.”
* Deborah James: Bowelbabe In Her Own Words is on Monday at 9pm on BBC Two and iPlayer. Follow Emma’s cancer journey on her podcast Open with Emma Campbell and her Instagram @Limitless_Em. Donate to Deborah’s appeal at bowelbabe.org.
