Julie Walters: I feel like a different person after cancer battle
Dame Julie Walters has spoken about how overcoming bowel cancer has changed her life.
The Oscar-nominated actress said she feels “like a different person” two years after having an operation to remove two tumours from her intestine.
She told Lorraine Kelly on Good Morning Britain today that it was “so far, so good” and she remained in good health.
Dame Julie, 70, spoke about her battle with cancer for the first time in February, when she revealed she had been given the all clear.
She told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire that she had undergone surgery to remove 30cm of her intestine as well as chemotherapy.
She said she first went to the doctor because of indigestion and “slight discomfort”, including stomach pains and heartburn as well as vomiting, and was eventually diagnosed with stage-three cancer.
Initially she kept the diagnosis secret and to enable her recovery in private she was cut from some scenes of The Secret Garden and missed the premiere of Mamma Mia! 2.
This morning the star of Billy Elliot and Harry Potter told Kelly: "It’s two years in June that I had the operation.
“I had a scan in February and that was clear, so, yeah, as far as I know everything is fine.”
She added: “Since the cancer, I’ve felt like that was a different person, the person who was acting the whole time.
“I feel like a different person now. People ask me about jobs like Mamma Mia and Harry Potter, and things like that, and it feels like it should be someone else answering, not me.”
Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK and second biggest cancer killer, claiming the lives of more than 16,000 people every year. However, it is treatable and curable, especially if diagnosed early.
In February she urged viewers to get themselves checked if they had symptoms, telling Derbyshire: "Your bowel is part of your digestive system, it's just what digests your food. Think of that.
"Doctors are used to bottoms. They've got one themselves."
Additional reporting by Press Association
