(^28) DAILY MIRROR TUESDAY 03.03.2020 DM1ST
HEALTH
me & my BODy: jay ast
On
The Bucks Fizz singer
tells Elizabeth
Archer why she is
lending her voice to a
campaign for sign
language to be
taught in schools
A
s Bucks Fizz star Jay Aston
stood in a recording studio
belting out the final notes of
a new song, tears streamed
down her face. When she glanced at
bandmates Cheryl Baker and Mike
Nolan, they were sobbing too.
Earlier that day, Jay had been diag-
nosed with mouth cancer.
The song’s title, Here to Eternity,
seemed especially poignant.
“It felt ominous that I was singing
that song on that day,” says Jay, 58,
who lives in Kent with husband Dave
Colquhoun and their 16-year-old
daughter Josie.
“It’s about leaving someone or
spending the rest of your life with
them. It was very emotional and we
were all crying at the end.”
Now, 18 months on, the song is
due to be released on The Fizz’s (as
they’re now known) new album,
Smoke and Mirrors. And Jay is
cancer free.
“Surviving cancer really makes
you re-evaluate your life,” she says.
Following her treatment, which
left her unable to speak at times, she
is keen to raise awareness of the
importance of being able to commu-
nicate. When she was in hospital
after surgery to remove the tumour,
she was mute for 10 days.
Now she has joined calls for
Makaton – a language combining
signs and sounds designed to help
the hearing communicate with the
deaf – to be taught in schools.
When Here to Eternity is released
on Friday, the video will feature
signing from Isabella Signs, a
YouTube star who learnt sign
language to communicate with her
younger brother Lucas, who has
Down’s syndrome.
Jay’s battle with cancer began in
2015, when her dentist noticed she
had an autoimmune condition
called lichen planus.
The condition causes a rash and
can appear anywhere on the body,
although it is common in the mouth.
“For me, it looked a little bit like a
white cobweb on my tongue,” says
Jay. “My dentist pointed it out during
a check-up. I hadn’t really noticed it.”
Then, during a routine dental
appointment in January 2018, her
dentist noticed the lichen planus
had begun to spread from the front
to the back of her tongue and
advised her to get it
looked at again.
In April, she had the
biopsy – there were
precancerous cells in her
tongue and she would
need some of it removed.
But after the initial
surgery in May came
more devastating news.
The section of tongue
they’d removed had cancerous cells
throughout and they couldn’t yet tell
where else they’d spread to.
Jay was devastated. “I wrote my
will out,” she says. “You plan for the
worst but hope for the best.”
And Jay is not alone. In the last 25
years, incidence of mouth cancer
has increased 135%, according to the
Mouth Cancer Foundation, up more
than 60% in the last 10 years alone.
Jay was particularly concerned
about her daughter, who was
preparing for her GCSEs. “My biggest
fear was leaving Josie. I want to live
to see her grow up, get married and
maybe have grandchildren.”
Ever the professional, Jay rushed
to record the remaining vocals for
The Fizz’s album before having the
surgery. Then, in June 2018, she had
a seven-hour operation to remove
40% of her tongue.
Surgeons fashioned a new tongue
using tissue from Jay’s thigh, which
was fed into her mouth through her
neck. Finally, they removed her top
teeth in case she needed to have
chemo or radiotherapy.
Afterwards, she was in agony.
“I looked like I’d been to a
Halloween party. I was very swollen
up and it was pretty grim.”
Because of the trache-
otomy, she couldn’t talk,
and had to communicate
using a whiteboard.
Then, 10 days after the
operation, her surgeon
came to tell her there was
no trace of cancer left.
“I cried tears of joy,” Jay
says. Since then, the road
to recovery has been a long one. She
has a seven-inch scar on her thigh
and one on her neck. But after
months of physio, she can speak
again and only has a slight lisp.
Singing, Jay says, has helped reha-
bilitate her more quickly.
“Being a singer helps because
you’re overusing your mouth when
you’re singing. I was in a show over
Christmas and they did a lot of
tongue twisters and vocal exercises
before the performances.
“At the beginning I couldn’t do any
of them, but after a few weeks I
could do almost all of it. My doctors
have been quite interested in that.”
And next month, she will have
false teeth implanted to replace the
ones she lost.
Meanwhile, her bandmates
have been incredibly supportive.
“We’ve had our moments but
there’s something that bonds us
together,” Jay says.
Since her diagnosis, she’s been
determined to take things a little
easier from now on.
“If I’m guilty of one thing it’s
that I’m too much of a doer. I
need to realise it’s OK to take it easy
sometimes.”
But with the album set to be
released this Friday, there’s no
chance of her slowing down just yet.
‘‘My biggest
fear was
leaving Josie.
I want to see
her grow up
and have kids
Surviving
cancer
makes you
re-evaluate
your life
HEYDAY With Bobby, Mike and Cheryl
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