Jonnie Irwin ‘fears his children won’t remember him’ after terminal cancer diagnosis
Jonnie Irwin has said he worries his young children won’t remember him, after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
The TV presenter, who presents Channel 4’s A Place In The Sun and the BBC’s Escape To The Country, said it was hard to see nice things happen for his family, given how little time he has left.
The 49-year-old shares three-year-old son Rex and two-year-old twins Rafa and Cormac with his wife Jessica.
Speaking to The Sun he said: “Every time something really nice happens with them, I have this thing knocking at my door, saying, ‘Don’t get too happy because you’re not going to be around much longer’.
“Then I think they’re not going to remember me, they’re really not.
“They’re too young and if I die this year there’s no chance they will have memories.”
He added: “Someone else is probably going to bring them up. I’ve done the hard yards with them and someone else will get the easy bit.”
Irwin revealed that he was in constant pain from a liver problem doctors believe may have been caused by the chemotherapy he was given to prolong his life and now he spends much of his time exhausted and on morphine.
He said he did not know “how much time I have left” but the cancer has now spread from his lungs to his brain.
First warning sign was blurred vision
He told Hello magazine earlier this month the first warning sign of his illness came two years ago while he was filming A Place In The Sun in Italy, when his vision became blurry while driving.
“Within a week of flying back from filming, I was being given six months to live,” he said.
“I had to go home and tell my wife, who was looking after our babies, that she was on her own pretty much. That was devastating.
“All I could do was apologise to her. I felt so responsible.”
He said he had chosen to keep his illness private until recently but had now decided to speak out to dispel some of the myths around cancer and to help people with “life limiting prospects”.
