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Lymphoma Voices podcast with Jamie Beamish

Published on: 23 March 2021

Bridgerton and Derry Girls actor Jamie shares his experience of Hodgkin lymphoma. 

Jamie Beamish

Lymphoma Action are delighted to feature actor Jamie Beamish in their latest Lymphoma Voices podcast. In this episode, Bridgerton and Derry Girls star Jamie talks to Lymphoma Action's Anne Hook about the impact his diagnosis and treatment had on his career. 
 
‘I was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 2007, whilst I was in a play in Dublin’ recalls Jamie. ‘But I was back on stage the following night after receiving the news. It wasn’t difficult – in fact, it was the one thing I held on to. I felt I had to get back on stage, and that it was a good thing to focus on. Although I was scared, getting lost in something for a few hours each evening was brilliant. Life doesn’t stop straight away, so as long as I was physically able to, I was going to do my job – it really helped actually.’  

‘My acting career did stop when I started treatment’ he continues. ‘But it propelled me to need to get better so I could get back to work.’

Jamie went into remission at the end of 2007, but then had a relapse of Hodgkin lymphoma in 2009. 

‘Relapsing is tough’ says Jamie. ‘What you have been through in the first instance is hard enough, but when it comes back again you have to drag yourself back up and think ‘if I have faced this once, I can face it again.’

Jamie received a stem cell transplant as part of his treatment. ‘It was tough, but worth it’ he says. ‘And now I am sitting here 12 years later, it really was worth it! I do believe in staying positive – although the illness stopped me from doing what I wanted to do, it was all about getting back to where I was and going forward from there.  It has definitely been an upward curve from then until now, which I think has a lot to do with positive thinking and the choices that you then make off the back of that.’

Listen to Lymphoma Action’s Lymphoma Voices podcast series at lymphoma-action.org.uk/support-you/lymphoma-voices-podcasts. The series is also available on Apple and Spotify.
 

23 March 2021