bowelbabe : Most liked Posts

Monique is just a darling girl. There's no other way of putting it.

Essentially Deborah is on palliative care. The treatment she has isn't aimed at curing her, it is there to prolong her life as long as it works.
As others have said she is in a privileged position with private healthcare (and good on her) so I'm pretty sure if she souly relied on the NHS her last 5 years would have been different.

With that being said I follow a few stage 4 cancer accounts and some wonderful ladies are living with cancer for many years thanks to treatments on the NHS.

Speaking as a stage 4 cancer patient myself; I do think NHS care is a postcode lottery. Which is unfair.

I really hope Deborah gets well enough to enjoy more time with her children and family

Does anyone follow PepesMama on instagram? She is another young mum with stage 4 cancer (breast) who has just been discharged from hospital with worsening ascites and no further treatment options. It’s truly awful. You feel like you get to know people on a public domain just by following their stories, and the thought of them no longer being her is truly heartbreaking.

Ok I’m just going to say it. What’s the f’ing point of any more chemo/immunotherapy/treatment drugs like that?

She’s dying, she’s in liver failure, she’s going to die I would think before the summer the way she’s going. It’s like pumping her full of stuff and why? She’s poorly on the meds she’s on. The steroids could make her bleed out at any time, she’s never home and she has no quality of life.

I just don’t get it. I also see it as a waste of resource.

I know I sound sooooo harsh but it’s true.

I won't read her piece in The S*n because I will not interact with that disgusting publication and I have just about had my fill of her.
I have however just seen her on BBC Breakfast and I am enraged.

She obviously had a horrid episode at home (one that I would not wish on my worst enemy) and was told that she would have to wait for an ambulance and this is absolutely not the care that we would wish for anyone, it's awful; but let's be frank here the NHS and paramedic services have been under so much pressure in recent times - day in, day out without respite or proper, meaningful support. So to hear her talk about how angry she is about that situation without highlighting this lack of support and resources infuriates me.
Her message is I didn't get what I needed and that's not fair.
So to then go on and say how amazed she is by what 20 medics can do in a small emergency space working quickly and precisely to save lives and highlight it by saying "that's when people need to be praised and that's when the NHS is incredible" is spiteful.
The ambulance service and paramedics are as worthy of that praise, that celebration and that recognition.
Once more she has used her platform to highlight herself and not to speak truth to power (the government) about how their choices are putting lives at risk and undoubtedly causing needless deaths.
It is all so narcissistic and performative.

As much as I really feel for her dealing with what she is I’m baffled that she and others seem to have turned having cancer into a career. Now I’m glad she raises awareness etc but the amount of gifted stuff she grabs, whilst living with her millionaire husband in their 2+million house is a bit sickening, especially as there will be thousands of others really struggling going through exactly the same, without private healthcare, without all the freebies. It’s a hard one and I don’t want to coma across as nasty towards her as I don’t mean that in any way, but the constant dancing one minute then saying she’s on the floor the next is really odd.

Allmyownopinion said:

Both of the ladies discussed are suffering all this treatment because they are being told there are trials they can take part in, if they can become stable. M doesn’t want to take too much fentanyl because it makes her unconscious & in that state for a while she’d no longer be a trial candidate. D is undergoing all these operations for the same reason, the hope of getting stable & resuming life prolonging treatment. I think the difference between the 2 is the fact that M acknowledges the suffering in trying to prolong life means she’s no longer living, it’s a hellish painful existence, but she can’t give up while there’s hope! D on the other hand. Well she’s either not as unwell/suffering as much or she’s very good at hiding it. The posts are all so sunny & I actually think she looks extremely well! Suntanned, smiling & although slimmer she looks fighting fit! So it’s harder to understand her situation, I think.

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BB isn’t suntanned - she has severe jaundice from liver failure!

I’m sure both of them are completely aware of their prognosis and the reality of their situations. They are doing what they can in their own way to cling on to life,

The ‘negative’ comment must have been deleted because the only comments I see on her fb and insta are people absolutely gushing at her podcast. I’m not even quite sure if they’re listening to a different podcast to the rest of us because it felt so contrived and fake and not emotive or sad at all to me.
I imagine that most of her followers haven’t had to experience Cancer on the NHS and how vastly different treatment is for one person to the next. My own dad and mother in law received exemplary care on the nhs and are both still here. My father in law on the other hand was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer at stage 1 had gruelling chemo and surgery to then be told he was terminal nothing could be done, a scan a month later apparently showed NED he was Cured but he never was in reality they sent him home to continue to decline. He couldn’t eat or drink for almost 6 months, they didn’t offer him another scan instead referred him to a dietician for ‘anorexia’ when the tumour was in fact blocking his oesophagus and gave him antidepressants for a mental illness he didn’t have. It was only 2 weeks before he died after collapsing at home they scanned him and realised his cancer had spread through his entire body. He spent week waiting for a hospice bed and died within 24 hours of arriving there. He died weighing 5 stone.
this is the reality for a lot of cancer patients just completely left on the scrap heap to suffer. A lot are left crying out in pain on hospital wards because there are not enough staff to administer pain relief or dying alone with no visitors due to covid restrictions, it’s absolutely a slap in the face time see her posts about stopping to grab her makeup and sparky dress and calling their private surgeon. Dancing on the wards and crying till her mum is allowed in.
she’s a 40 year old adult baby who think the world revolves around her. How anyone can be so dumb as to think she’s received all this care on the NHS is beyond a joke.

I think at the end of the day it’s completely understandable that she wants to cling to every last second she can get. I guess it’s just that most of us don’t know how she puts up with as much as she does. I don’t think many could and would have stopped treatment by now so it makes it hard to watch someone go through so much pain willingly. Cancer is utterly evil and whatever you feel of her personality, I’m sure we can all agree it’s devastating to see what she’s had to go through.

Thank you for everyone who has knowledge of how these things ‘ work’ in terms of medication and processes, I am grateful to you all for sharing this. It’s hard to comprehend that Monique is as poorly she is. I hope she can be present enough to know her loved ones are nearby. I can’t stop thinking about her and her family , just watching and waiting knowing that she will never get better. Her story is so tragic.

EllaEm87 said:

It didn’t, she could’ve handed the baton over to someone else with BC to front the campaign. Someone else also living with it. Instead she sensationalised herself and sent her mum in.

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Adele Roberts is doing sterling work advocating for bowel cancer & documenting her surgery & hopefully recovery. BB could easily pass the baton on to her now.

Truthspeaker said:

I’m a tiny bit confused… if were to ever get cancer and be on deaths door, I would accept every ad that came my way, and embrace making some money from it… surely one of the only good things to come from it, no?

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I think we’ve got to remember that BB had her own (highly successful) career as a deputy head teacher at 35. To lose your job, health, income is a lot. I for one would hate to be reliant on my partner financially, even though he could afford it like BB’s hubby very clearly can. I think ads, podcasts, articles whatever are her job now, and I don’t blame her for wanting to earn her own money and have some sense of accomplishment other than just being a wife and mother. Agreed she’s become a little greedy mind, some days her stories are like 10 long and just ad after ad which is tone deaf and so annoying.

My issue with BB is the private healthcare v NHS. I’ve followed for some time now and don’t think I’ve ever seen her even allude to the fact she’s receiving private care. Guess that makes her super unrelatable so she hides it. Don’t blame her for using it, but would respect her using her platform in a more honest way and acknowledging her privilege. I think a lot about whether my mother would still be here instead of dying when I was a teen because she did not get access to timely diagnosis and decent treatment with her stage 4 bowel cancer.

Few comments upthread about her teeth, hair, stomach. Think that’s unnecessary to attack someone’s looks, particularly if her teeth are becoming weakened by vomit and chemo, and her stomach is distended from tumours and liver failure. Think that probably IS trolling and not the healthy discussion and debate that we’ve mostly engaged with on this thread

It's insane to me that Monique's NHS medical team aren't doing EVERYTHING they can to give her as much time as possible given that she's only 26 years old! They're behaving as though she's a 90-year-old who's at death's door, so why bother? Not that being 90 would justify such terrible treatment either, but the fact that they seem to view her as not worth doing anything more for is abhorrent.

fusspot said:

I’m so sorry about your Dad.

I don’t really have anything to say about the rights and wrongs of BB’s behaviour but I’ve been following this thread with interest.
I’m still very broken mentally by the loss of my Dad and the, at times, dehumanising treatment of him by the NHS.
I’m not currently strong enough or energetic enough to do it, but I’d love to try and start a campaign for the NHS to focus as much on the patient (and their loved ones) as human beings and more than just the elements of the disease being treated. Particularly with terminal cancer.
Your post resonated with me because I felt that there was too much clinical detachment at times towards my Dad. A complete unwillingness to involve him or his family in any decisions made. Culminating in writing him off when the only treatment offered failed.
I’m still quite traumatised and guilt ridden by the fact that he was shut in a hospital room for weeks towards the end of his life, with no stimulation between visiting times. Just laying there staring at a wall until we fought to get him home.
I think this plunged him into depression and hastened his decline.
So I strongly feel that the picture painted of the care given in the NHS system is very inaccurate. Not just on BB’s insta posts but in lots of other areas of media too.
I’m glad for Deborah that seemingly all the stops are being pulled out to keep her alive. I hope it succeeds for as long as possible.
I just wish the very best of care was available for everyone.

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I am so sorry to hear about your Dad also I too found the whole 'process' to be very similar as you described. Both him and my Grandma who went through a near identical thing a few years later, were essentially left to die once their one treatment option failed. There honestly wasn't even much in the way of minimising their pain or supporting them emotionally. I remember vividly how much my Dad had to go through to even claim disability allowance. He was quite literally dying and he had to fight to prove it for mere pittance to keep a roof over his head. Of course that in itself isn't anything to do with the NHS, but things like this are the broader experience of many terminally ill patients as a whole. Not at all akin to Deborah's. When my Grandma was dying in a hospice she begged me to help her die in the same day that the hospice team were telling us if she didn't die quickly enough she'd have to leave because she was bed blocking.

Again, on a personal level I resent Deborah nothing. I resent what the image of Deborah stands for, which is that money talks and your life is only worth something if you have it. So when Deborah is dancing around, it's people like my Dad and Grandma who are sat watching her wondering why they aren't so important. Of course it's very easy to take things personally and project onto someone who's fault it isn't, but I think it's understandable when people have been through so much and there is such horrendous inequality.

None of us want her to lose any of her opportunities. We just want everyone to be treated the same and because that will never happen, it should be made more clear and a false image shouldn't be allowed to be painted.

One thing I do admire about BB is she's not really every complained about her illness. She has really tried to keep positive and I think that this is why I will miss her.

Renegadedancer said:

Yes, I just watched that and I think that was her boyfriend throwing the ball to the dog he’s been there with her every step of the way

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And to think some BB defender came on here and said Monique must be paying him to stick around.

Oh dear ive just seen her spaced out still dancing next to her chemo drip. Despite all Ive said she looks so ill and frail that I cant help feeling very sorry for her. She is stick thin with an ascitic abdomen and im sure she looks jaundiced on her arms. This really isnt good. The drs keep pumping her full of chemo but I really dont think she has got long now. If she was my daughter I would want to scoop her up and take her home and spend the rest of her time surrounded by her family and beautiful home. Instead the phone is out filming her at her most fragile vulnerable state looking so childlike. My mum would never let the world see me like this. Despite how utterly bonkers they all are her latest post is just heartbreaking to see.

Her privilege playing out as usual - managing to speak to her consultant on his mobile as she’s on her way to A&E. Just goes to show, as ever, that if she were an NHS stage 4 patient she literally wouldn’t be around to write that column today. And I’m glad for her sake that she is, but the inequality in our health service just keeps coming up again and again.

I also thought it was interesting, the way she angrily wrote about the 30 minute delay for an ambulance and her husband having to “blue light” her instead. It was like this was the first time her privilege wasn’t going to allow her to jump the queue, and access emergency care exactly when she needed it.

I appreciate in traumatic situations you look to blame someone, but I had one call and nobody could help.

Is this being repeated elsewhere in the country? I felt totally unheard, I felt like they were leaving me for dead.

I felt like someone had just decided: ‘Sorry, we can’t save you today, there’s no space’.

Had it not been for my husband, I wouldn’t be here today.

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Is this being repeated? Yes. Ever since Covid. And also before. Local to me, and elderly lady who’d fallen had to lay on the pavement, being tended to by passers by, for three hours before an ambulance arrived. I was amazed that Deborah is so blind to what a state the NHS is in.

AnnaBanana85 said:

I am also fed up with people tarring all GPs with the same brush. Regardless of your experience, the vast majority of GPs have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic. People don’t seem to realise that it was government led advice directed via health board management that most GP contacts switched to telephone consultations.

Its the NHS, it’s failing and that’s a fact. But don’t bash GPs who have very little say in how consultations changed during the pandemic. People seem to expect the NHS to be this ultra super power continuing to thrive during a global crisis. It simply isn’t up to that standard unfortunately but it’s not the fault of an individual sector.

Write to your local MP with your own experience of failings, because ultimately “GPs not seeing anyone” is far from reality. In my opinion it’s a reflection of how self entitled a society we have become. Don’t like it - go private or move country and sample the spectacular health services world wide..!

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I’m sorry but I disagree with your statement here. The NHS is funded with public money, people have a right to an opinion and opinions come from experience, whether that’s negative or positive. Saying go private or move country is ridiculous.
The only way to change anything is to make sure you use your vote and understand what you are voting for.

Anyway, I’m sure this thread is derailing and needs to move on to topic

Karolina1985 said:

I know you won't understand it, because you are all not so keen od Deborah, but I will be devastated when she will die. I'm not a cancer sufferer myself, I was once scrolling on my instagram and Natalie Woodward (@iamnatwoodward) popped on my feed and I thought "oh who is she, she's so pretty". So I started following her and I found out about her bowel cancer and everything that happened to her, still can't comprehend the extensivity of the surgery that she has had. Later through Nat I found Monique and Deborah and that's when my love for BB started. She's just my type of person, I love her energy, I love every silly video that she has made. I was just in awe of her strenght and positivity, I loved that she's all glam on hospital corridors, that's she's dancing to Stayin Alive by Bee Gees in the middle of London streets. I just don't want her to be dead, I want her instagram to go on and be fun and positive for a years to come. I don't why I'm really typing this to you, but I made a promise to myself - I won't follow anymore women with stage IV cancer because you get attached somehow and those people even though they are strangers they will be missed once they're gone.

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I can understand what you wrote, particularly 'I just don't want her to be dead, I want her instagram to go on and be fun and positive for years to come.' Yes. Who the hell wants to see an attractive, energetic 40-year-old be slowly killed by a bastard disease like cancer? Whatever we may or may not think of her, it's cruel and she will be greatly missed by those who love her and know her and also thousands of people who don't.