About Single Parents Going Through Cancer
You, Me and the Big C: Putting the can in cancer
BBC
4.8 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 February 2024
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Steve Bland returns to host this legacy episode discussing cancer and single parents. Steve is joined in the studio by Sophie Blake, who is living with Stage 4 Breast Cancer and is single parent to 16-year-old Maya, Ryan Mahon who lost his wife during the pandemic, and is now single parent to Lola and Pixie, and 22-year-old Sophie White, single mother to a nearly 2 year old, Remi. Sophie suffered a seizure in June 2023, and within weeks was diagnosed with glioblastoma and told she had just 12 to 18 months to live. Steve, Ryan, and the Sophie's discuss the challenges and rewards surrounding being a single parent affected by cancer.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. Hello and |
| 0:15.0 | it has been a little while since I sat in this chair. |
| 0:17.0 | It has been a little while since I sat in this chair. |
| 0:21.0 | If you're new to this podcast and Rachel Bland, Dame |
| 0:24.2 | Deborah James, Lauren Barn and I have already covered loads and loads of topics |
| 0:28.5 | and we've spoken to all kinds of guests and all these podcasts are available right now on BBC Sounds and in all your other |
| 0:35.0 | podcast places. |
| 0:37.0 | Right, a little history lesson. |
| 0:38.5 | So back in early 2018 my first wife Rachel started this podcast after being diagnosed with breast cancer and most of you will know |
| 0:46.8 | that later that year in September she died. Obviously grieving for Rachel was was incredibly difficult but on top of this I overnight became a single parent to my two year old boy |
| 0:58.5 | Freddie now that's an unbelievably rewarding experience but is incredibly challenging. |
| 1:05.0 | Overnight I went from a situation where there were two of us to figure out all of those |
| 1:09.5 | little problems and I'll be honest Rachel was generally the one that figured out the problems and I was the one that did what I was told and all of a sudden I had to make all these big decisions on my own without the support of someone else. |
| 1:21.0 | Now I've been fortunate enough to meet someone else. Now I've been fortunate enough to meet someone else since and I got |
| 1:26.3 | remarried in 2022. We have two more beautiful children but I can still record how difficult it was being a single parent to Fred. |
| 1:35.8 | That's not to say there aren't, you know, great things that have come from it and Freddie and |
| 1:39.1 | I have an unbelievably strong bond now that I think probably was forged in that year or so after Rachel died. |
| 1:47.0 | And now as we know, cancer doesn't discriminate and there are so many people, so many stories that we hear of people who have been |
| 1:54.2 | dealt a really rough hand in other in other parts of life and then cancer comes |
| 1:58.5 | along it doesn't discriminate in terms of who it attacks and we don't get to |
| 2:02.1 | choose who it comes for and there's all kinds |
| 2:04.7 | of ways in which it can affect families just like it did with ours but what if you're on your |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.