The Big C & Me

Professor Jan Draper and Dr Mathijs Lucassen are the lead academics on the BBC series 'The Big C & Me'. 

There are two and a half million of us, and the number is growing by nearly a thousand a day: that is how many people in Britain are living with cancer. But a cancer diagnosis is no longer the death sentence it once was. Now, for the first time, half can expect to live beyond their cancer.

The Big C & Me takes us through the doors of the consulting room at St James's Hospital in Leeds, where, for the first time, we witness that raw moment of diagnosis when life changes; and at the Christie Hospital in Manchester, we drop into the lives of patients undergoing chemotherapy. These unguarded encounters between patients, all at different stages of their cancer journey, reveal that the pressures and preoccupations of daily life never stop - even as life and death are ever present.

Filmed across a year, the stories of our contributors and their families play-out in their own time frames. Some are seen from diagnosis all the way through to the all-clear; others pick up once the treatment has started. In each story we witness the often funny and sometimes heart-breaking conversations that become a part of daily life and share in the ups and downs, fear and optimism that accompany life with cancer.

Full broadcast details, a discussion hub and links to a free booklet can be found on OpenLearn