DEBORAH James has revealed she is battling a bowel infection, days after being rushed to hospital with a 40C fever.
The Sun columnist reassured worried well-wishers she is doing ok, but feeling "incredibly weak and tired".
It comes just weeks after she celebrated her 40th birthday – a huge milestone
She wrote on Instagram: "I'm pretty ill at the moment. All your messages have brought a smile to my face at a really tough time.
"I'm using all my energy to recover and today is the first day I've felt able to give you an update.
"Despite so desperately wanting a break from these hideous cancer treatment side effects, it seemed my body had other ideas.
"On Wednesday I was admitted with what we now know was another septic infection.
"I was so ill my incredible husband had to blue light me quickly to A&E."
She said she has a condition called infectious colitis – a bacterial gut infection that is causing bowel inflammation.
The mum also posted she had been forced to miss being at home for her daughter, Eloise's, 12th birthday – telling the youngster they would have double the celebrations when she got home.
Last week Deborah, a mum-of-two, shared a selfie on Instagram and wrote: "Not how I want to start a Wednesday!
"Had to go to A&E, was spiking 40 degree temperatures and was so dehydrated from not being able to keep anything in me!
“Have spent the last 8 hours being pumped full of antibiotics and fluids – lots of fluids! Feeling better already! Hope this is a fly by visit!"
Deborah, known as BowelBabe on Instagram, was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in 2016, at the age of 35.
Last night she said she is slowly feeling better, and thanked people for their kind messages but warned she would be less active on social media as she worked to recover.
She added: "Keep telling those close to you that you love them.
"Having good health is such a blessing – never take it for granted."
She has beaten the odds by living at least five years after her diagnosis, which she never dreamed possible.
Doctors said that, due to an aggressive mutation in her cancer, most people like her “live for about seven months, two-and-a-half years at best”.
But Deborah is undergoing gruelling daily chemotherapy in order to keep her cancer at bay.
She has described it as the “hardest three months since my diagnosis physically and mentally”.
Deborah said in her recent Sun column, Things Cancer Made me Say: “I’ve been telling my nearest and dearest for the last month that I think I must be dying.
“That’s how bad my stomach pain and vomiting has been.
“Some days I find it challenging to even leave the house – and my mind automatically assumes it must be my cancer growing again. How can it not be?
“But as it turns out, it really is ‘just’ the hideous side effects of cancer treatment.”
Having good health is such a blessing – never take it for granted.
Earlier this year, Deborah was told that the experimental drugs keeping her alive had stopped working.
A rapidly growing tumour wrapped around her bile duct, and as a result her liver began to fail.
She was told it was inoperable, but that her liver was too fragile for her to have chemotherapy.
On June 23, Deborah was rushed to hospital for an emergency operation to insert a stent into her liver to try to reverse the organ failure.
Thankfully it worked and she could have chemo again, and she is nearing her 100th cycle in just four-and-a-half years.
In the week she hit her 40th birthday, on October 2, Deborah was told the “nuclear chemo” drugs were working and that her cancer was stable, with no new tumours growing.
She penned: “It doesn’t really change my reality, apart from confirming that I must plough on with hardcore chemo to stay alive.
“It hasn’t suddenly made my horrific side effects disappear, and it won’t stop me feeling completely rank on a daily basis.
“And it definitely doesn’t mean I can ease up on my treatment plan.
“Despite all that, I am happy. Really happy.”
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