Above: Williams
with her daughters,
Esmé and Roxana.
Right: in a scene
from Counterpart- it was during
filming for the
American TV show
that she learned
of her diagnosis
Having indulged without any extraordinary consequences
for years, I headed to the doctor and got my first diagnosis
from an eccentric Harley Street rheumatologist. He drew
blood, and the test came back: “Lupus!” he declared.
“Definitely, lupus.”
But after a year of drugs and scrutiny from the specialist
lupus clinic, I was discharged from their care with a note to
my GP that I definitely did not have lupus. A new symptom,
diarrhoea of an inconceivable consistency and quantity,
suggested I should be treated for depression, IBS and
amenorrhea. For it is a truth universally acknowledged that
a middle-aged woman in possession of a red face and a dodgy
tummy must be a perimenopausal nutjob.
My resource-starved GP unwillingly did a menopause
test. Negative. Another year passed. Blood tests for stomach
cancer, bowel cancer and colon cancer all come back negative.
A little celebration each time for the all-clear – then I’d wake
at 3am, and “feel the fell of dark, not day”.
Another two years passed, and with them mutterings of
SIBO, Sjögren’s syndrome and coeliac disease. While filming
in Berlin, I wondered whether a German doctor would take
an interest in my symptoms. I had taken to carrying around
a perfectly liquid stool sample in my handbag, not unlike a
cup of tepid lapsang souchong, on the off-chance, should I
meet a doctor, they might see the evidence and cry “Eureka!”
I kept it in a well-sealed, triple zip-locked and sterilised
Bonne Maman jar – its cheery red gingham lid recalling
continental breakfasts of warm baguettes and apricot jam.
I went to a clinic specialising in endoscopy and colonoscopy
to rule out cancer in my digestive tract, by having one camera
start at my throat and go downwards, and another start at
the other end and go up. The clinic was a gorgeous spa-like
suite of rooms in a luxury block at the expensive end of the
Ku’damm. Ushered into an orchid-strewn consulting room
with a beautiful female doctor, I was asked some standard
questions about symptoms. To save time and the language
barrier, I whipped out
my Bonne Maman jar.
The doctor recoiled
in horror, rolling her
chair to the farthest
corner of the room.
“Don’t show me this!”
she barked. “Why are
you showing me this?
Put this away!”
The results came
back in German, along
with a short email
in English. Barrett’smucosa. I plonked myself
down in the make-up chair
at work and confidently
announced, “I definitely
don’t have cancer” – not
knowing that both
procedures had stopped
short of the organ-dense
digestive hub between
the endoscopy and the
colonoscopy. I’d gone to
the right address, but failed
to look up the back stairs.Filming moved to Los Angeles. Where before my
symptoms were erratic, they now become constant, palpable,
undeniable. I paid up to see a gynaecologist, an endocrinologist
and a gastroenterologist, again and again and again. By this
time, I am so dehydrated that the endless blood tests are
difficult to draw. I am underweight, desperate, far from home,
working 16-hour days, letting down a hundred people with
every doctor’s appointment.
Finally, I have a CT scan. It reveals a 7cm by 4cm tumour
in my pancreas. I sit in the GI’s office and weep – for myself,
my family, and for my friend Tom Beard, who had died three
years before of pancreatic cancer. From my understanding,
that was it. I was done. Death sentence.
“It’s not pancreatic cancer,” the GI said. “It might be a
neuroendocrine tumour. It might not be cancerous. We need
to do a needle biopsy this afternoon.”
I didn’t hear the “might”. I only heard “not cancer”. I stood
up and said, thank you, but I can’t go to hospital today, I
have to be on set in 40 minutes. From the look on her face,
I sensed that this response was not rational. She barred my
way, and escorted me to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
A week later, I received the email that confirmed her suspicions.
I did not have pancreatic cancer, which has a one-year survival
rate of less than 20 per cent. I had neuroendocrine cancer, in
the pancreas, that grows slowly and has a one-year survival rate
of 80 per cent. That was the good news – the great news.
The surreal news was that my tumour was a VIP – not the
kind that sashays down a red carpet and slides unchallenged
past the velvet rope. This was a one in 10 million vasoactive
intestinal polypeptide carcinoma. It had taken more than 10
doctors, across three continents, four years to track it down,
but finally, I had a diagnosis. I had grieved so many times
when I was told I had something, then grieved again when
I was told that I didn’t. Now I could activate my arsenal
against a known enemy. I exploded with a manic energy – no
time for a sympathetic sigh or comforting hug. This thing
was operable, and once it was out, it was over.
I was scheduled for the seven-hour surgery on my 50th
birthday. I turned up at King’s College Hospital in London
feeling it was the best day of my life. Not the party I’d planned
to mark my midcentury, but if it gave me a chance of being
alive on my 51st birthday, I’d embrace it.
Soon after my six-month all-clear, I was asked to be an
ambassador for Pancreatic Cancer UK. I was happy to help
but pointed out I wasn’t really famous enough to raise lots
of money. They replied that I wasn’t being asked because I was
famous. I was being asked because there are so few survivors.
I don’t blame the doctors for not spotting the cancer earlier.
No right-minded GP orders a CT scan for an actress allergic
to champagne. But if a simple test had existed way back in the
Harley Street consulting room, this article would be far shorter,
I would still have a functioning pancreas and spleen, and
Tom Beard, Alan Rickman, Luciano Pavarotti, Aretha Franklin,
John Hurt, Patrick Swayze, Steve Jobs, and someone you are
related to, might still be here to tell you their survival story.
Research funded by Pancreatic Cancer UK estimates that
this test is only three years away. Three years and a few
(hundred) thousand quid. But who will raise that money for
people who don’t know they’re sick yet, so that when they
find out, it’s not too late? I cannot thank those who saved my
life with sufficient words or gifts, but I can pass their incalculable
generosity forward by trying to raise money for early diagnosis
for all pancreatic cancers, so all those people have a chance
to fight, be bloody-minded and survive. Not just the VIPs. Q
To support this vital research, go to Pancreaticcancer.org.ukVIEWPOINT
140EVERETT COLLECTION/ALAMYI was
scheduled for
surgery on my
50th birthday.
Not the party
I’d planned,
but if it gave
me a chance
of being alive
on my 51st, I’d
embrace it12-19-FOB-Viewpoint-OliviaWilliams.indd 140 14/10/2019 12:41