Victoria Derbyshire penned "goodbye letters" to her two young sons to help her deal with her cancer diagnosis.
The 49-year-old presenter was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, but she finally got the all-clear last year after undergoing "life-saving treatment".
In the lead up to her operation, ‘The Real Full Monty’ star channelled her "anxiety" into the notes for Oliver, 13, and Joe, 11 – her sons with husband Mark Sandell – to remind them of how much she loves them, just in case she died from the disease.
Bursting into tears, Victoria told the ‘Loose Women’ panel on Tuesday’s show (01.05.18): "It was life-saving surgery. I had a fear about the anaesthetic, rather than getting rid of a breast. That was fine, it had cancer in there, get rid of it. I just worried, what if I don’t wake up?
"I know that was irrational – that was the anxiety in the run up to the operation.
"The only way I could get to sleep the night before was to write two letters – one to Oliver who is my oldest son, who was 11 at the time, and one to Joe, who was eight at the time, just to tell them – I’m going to cry, sorry – just to tell them how much I love them and remind them of funny things they’d done throughout their life.
"Remind them a bit about how they were born – because Oliver took ages to come out, Joe was out in two hours… they love those stories.
"Just remind them to be polite when they grow up and have manners."
Victoria has penned the book ‘Dear Cancer, Love Victoria’, which was inspired by the vlogs she did throughout her treatment.
The broadcast journalist says people’s supportive comments on the videos helped her get through her treatment.
She said: "I did some video diaries through my treatment, documenting the side effects. Lots of people watched them.
"That wasn’t the point of it, it was just because I’m a journalist and I work on TV, I thought, I’ll record what happens.
"The response to those was overwhelming – [people said] I watched this before I had a mastectomy and it really helped me. I was not expecting that, I felt really privileged. Then I thought maybe I could write about it, because I do write a diary. Obviously there’s a lot of rubbish in there as well, it just went from there."
Since getting the all-clear, Victoria has lived "intensely", making the most of every moment.
She said: "I just live my life intensely, intensively, I squeeze the life out of every second of every day."
Victoria Derbyshire wrote ‘goodbye letters’ to son’s during cancer battle
