Just two days after revealing she had a week to live, BBC podcast host Rachael Bland has died of breast cancer. She was 40.
“Our beautiful, courageous Rachael died peacefully this morning surrounded by her close family,” Bland’s family wrote from her Twitter account Wednesday.
“We are crushed but she would want me to thank everyone who took an interest in her story or sent messages of support. You’ll never know how much they meant to her,” the family added.
On Monday, Bland tweeted: “In the words of the legendary Frank S- I’m afraid the time has come my friends. And suddenly. I’m told I’ve only got days. It’s very surreal.”
“Thank you so much for all the support I’ve received. Debs and lozz will continue with the #youmebigc podcast. Au revoir my friends.”
Much like her farewell message, Bland’s spirits remained high throughout her illness.
She along with her co-hosts, and fellow cancer sufferers, Deborah James and Lauren Mahon created the podcast You, Me and the Big C: Putting the Can in Cancer, a show that talks candidly about cancer and how to live with it. She also had a cancer blog titled Big C Little Me.
Bland was diagnosed with primary triple-negative breast cancer in November 2016.
“I’d had some pain under my arm, then found a lump. I was stunned when they told me it was breast cancer,” Bland wrote in an article published to The Telegraph last month.
Bland also admitted in the article that she was afraid to leave her two-year-old son Freddie without a mother.
“I’m not scared of dying. I only fear for those I leave behind. For my darling Freddie… for Steve and our families,” Bland said in reference to her husband a BBC journalist she married in 2013.
“He’s quite an emotional man, so I know he’ll do a lot of crying. But he is also the most amazing father and will keep going and stay strong for our son’s sake,” Bland added.
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Predicting her biggest fear would come true, Bland wrote a book dedicated to her son, she explained in a different article she wrote for The Huffington Post.
The memoir, which Bland said was nearly done includes “personal effects like notepads — so he can see what my writing was like. Or the perfume he helped pick out for me earlier this year so he’ll remember my smell.”
Before her diagnosis, Bland was a BBC news presenter for over 15 years.
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