Former BBC Breakfast presenter Bill Turnbull returned to the show on Friday to raise male cancer awareness as he continues his own treatment for prostate cancer.
Turnbull was diagnosed with incurable prostate cancer at the end of 2017 and shared his diagnosis while competing in the Great Celebrity Bake Off in March of this year. With the right care, the 62-year-old has been told he could live for another decade.
Bill Turnbull's Emotional Cancer Message. #GBBO #SU2C pic.twitter.com/x5CW95qDJt
— Channel 4 (@Channel4) March 12, 2018
On Friday's BBC Breakfast he was joined in a special film by actor and presenter Stephen Fry, who has also been receiving treatment for prostate cancer, as they urged men to take better care of their health.
Turnbull and Fry's openness about their illness has led to what bosses of Britain's National Health Service (NHS) have called "the Turnbull-Fry effect", which has seen the number of men receiving treatment rise by a third.
This is how @billtu and @stephenfry are helping to save the lives of men with prostate cancer: #TurnbullFryeffect #prostatecancer pic.twitter.com/aDiKaRPoh2
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) December 21, 2018
"It's very heart-warming when people get in touch, and I think, 'Well, I have done at least one useful thing in my life'," Turnbull told the programme.
On the devastation of receiving a diagnosis of prostate cancer, Turnbull said: "You have a few days where you're in shock and then you have a few weeks which are pretty dark."
"There will be hundreds of people in Britain who will get a diagnosis [today]," he continued.
"All I can say to them is hold tight, and things will... They won't get better, but it won't be quite as dark as it is now."
