Bill Turnbull has helped save lives by speaking out about his prostate cancer diagnosis.
The former BBC Breakfast presenter announced in March that he had been suffering from "incurable" cancer since November last year, and now he’s revealed other sufferers and their wives reached out to tell him they’d gone and got themselves checked out for the disease as a result.
He told RadioTimes magazine: "A lot of men got in touch to say they had gone to get checked. And a number of wives told me they’d made their husbands go.
"Some have written to let me know what happened next.
"’Dear Bill, I thank you for my husband’s life. After watching you on television a few months ago my husband reluctantly went for a PSA blood test.
"’He was found to have prostate cancer and had his prostate removed. He has had the all-clear.’"
After Bill publicly revealed his battle, Prostate Cancer UK were inundated with calls, 400 per cent more than usual.
The 62-year-old newsreader – who has 29-year-old Henry, Will, 28, and Flora, 26, with his wife Sesi – says he is surrounded by "love" and if it were down to that he’d be fighting fit admitting, "If love could have cured me, I’d be a healthy man now".
Bill’s cancer has unfortunately spread to his pelvis, hips, spine and legs.
He said: "You go to bed at night thinking about it, and it’s still there when you wake up.
"It’s there all day, every day – a fact of life you have to get used to. And it’s a massive pain in the backside."
Bill had undergone chemotherapy but the side affects got too much for him, and he asked for the treatment to be stopped.
He felt "depressed" and it left him with "crushing fatigue", which he couldn’t bare anymore.
He said: "After the eighth round of chemo in July, I asked the consultant to release me from the treatment.
"I just couldn’t bear it any longer. We ended up doing one more, and then called it a day.
"Each round felt worse. I kept my hair, more or less, but lost my sense of taste. I had days when all I could do was lie down and wait for the crushing fatigue and nausea to pass.
"It felt as if the chemo was now taking on a character of its own, like some malevolent gremlin.
"It would take me on. Grind me down. During the bad phases, I wondered if I’d ever recover from feeling sick, tired and depressed."
Bill Turnbull helps saves lives after revealing prostate cancer battle
