James Valentine has come through his cancer treatment and will return to the afternoon shift on 702 ABC Radio Sydney.
In March, Valentine broke the news to his audiences that he had cancer of the oesophagus and would be off air for an indefinite time. Well wishing messages flooded in to the station’s text line after the news.
“Cancer is a trigger word for just about everyone because your own body turning against you is a horrible thing and, for many, the course of the disease is ghastly, and for many it’s fatal.”
His doctor told him, “It’s bad. You’ve got a 4-centimetre tumour where your oesophagus meets your stomach.”
In the early stages of his treatment, Valentine continued to do his afternoon show, not telling listeners about his condition until just before he had the operation. “I thought about telling the ABC Radio Sydney audience before [the operation], but I decided I’d only just come back to Afternoons. It’s generally a jolly show, so let’s have a good time there for a few months rather than shade that whole time with my disease.”
“I got chemo and radiation straight off, but only a mild dose designed to shrink the tumour and clean out the body before surgery. I got tired from the radiation, the chemo made me feel like my whole body had been sluiced through with liquid aluminium foil but I could go to work, do the radio, and I even did a gig or two playing saxophone… Much to the annoyance of my bald brothers, my hair didn’t fall out.”
His recovery has gone well and he has spent the last month getting ready to go back on air for a daily shift. He has already returned to his regular voicetracked ABC Jazz weekly show.
When Tim Webster, who has been replacing Valentine, told the audience, listeners were happy to know that Valentine was returning but sad to see Webster go. Webster said that he will be heard on other shifts on the station in coming months, beginning with weekends.
In his first show back on ABC Radio Sydney afternoons today, Monday August 12, Valentine talked about his experience for a while then launched into the normal flow of his shift.