Lorraine Kelly opened up about her final visit to Deborah James in hospital as she admitted she thought her colleague and friend would "bounce back".
The 40-year-old, who was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in 2016, shared the heartbreaking news on Tiwtter on Monday evening that she was now in a hospice surrounded by friends and family.
Presenter Lorraine had worked with Deborah on the ITV show's No Butts campaign, which aimed to raise awareness of bowel cancer, and is close friends with the podcast host.
Discussing Deborah on the ITV programme with Dr Hilary jones, Lorraine said: " The only thing, Hilary, is that she always just bounced back and I just expected her to. Recently I went to see her in the hospital and - although she was very thin - she was Deborah!
"She was full of life, she was funny, she was making everybody laugh, she was her usual self and I thought, 'This is another wee hiccup along the line'."
Dr Hilary said: "She's got to where she has against the odds - she's tried new treatments, she's tried treatments that could potentially cause problems.
"She's been a kind of trialist for many new forms of therapy and amazing to see where she's got to now. I loved her latest post which says, 'No regrets, enjoy life!'"
Earlier, Lorraine joined Susanna Reid and Richard Madely as she spoke about Deborah's campaign to raise money for Cancer Research.
So far, Deborah has raised more than £800,000 in just 24 hours and Lorraine explained: "This fantastic idea that we buy her a drink, and the money we would spend on the drink, we would put it into the Bowel Babe fund."
She gushed over the amount raised: "She'll be absolutely thrilled and overjoyed with that!"
But appearing to choke up, Lorraine continued: "I thought, as I always do, that she would bounce back... but she's getting very well looked after by everybody that loves her. So we'll be talking about that today."
It comes after much-loved BBC star Deborah penned on Monday: "The tweet I never wanted to write. The time has come to say goodbye.
"It has been 5 years to prepare, doesn’t make it any easy.
"I’m under hospice at home care, & I’m spending my time surrounded by my family. Please buy me a wine to see me out and raise vital funds."
*Lorraine airs weekdays at 9am on ITV
