- But most of all, listen to your body.
When something changes, when something is different,
get medical advice.
When I opened the papers last week,
I was truly sad to hear that Sarah Harding had died.
She was so young.
I met her, actually. I was at the finals of 'X-Factor,'
and she was an incredible girl,
but she did what some people do, they ignore the symptoms.
Sarah talked about getting a cyst on her breast,
and she decided it was some kind of friction
from her bra strap.
She got to the point where she was in so much pain
that she couldn't sleep in her bed.
And here's the thing, our body is very intelligent,
it usually tells us when something is wrong.
When something is wrong, you've got to listen
to your body.
You know, I've had cancer twice,
and I consider myself very lucky
that my body told me each time something was wrong.
I went to see my doctor, and I got it fixed
really easily because it was early.
And Sarah Harding isn't the only person
who hasn't listened to their body.
Many years ago, I was working in a bootcamp
with Jade Goody, who had all kinds of symptoms down below
as she said, and she said, "Oh, I'm just ignoring them.
"It will go away.
"Something weird is going on,
"but I think it will go away."
And she turned out to have cervical cancer,
and she sadly died.
And there was a lot of hoo-ha about her being let down
by the medical profession, but it turned out
that they'd been writing to her over
and over again saying, "Please come for a scan,"
but she didn't.
And it's very normal to go, "I don't want to get bad news.
"I'm just going to ignore that, it will go away."
Listen to your body, your body is very smart,
and when you tune into your body,
it will tell you when something is going wrong.
"Here's bleeding I'm not used to.
"Oh, there's a sudden lump, I don't know what that is.
"There's a sudden rash.
"I've got a funny taste in my mouth.
"I've lost my appetite.
"I'm gaining weight.
"I'm losing weight.
"I'm bloated."
If you have any symptoms that are not normal,
please get a doctor's opinion, and then get
a second opinion, it's your life.
And Sarah was an amazing girl, funny, talented,
beautiful, artistic, and she probably would still be here
if she had only gone to see her doctor sooner.
So, we can't get her back, I wish we could,
she was an amazing girl.
She had something else that I found
rather tragic about her, is that she felt
she had to be what she called the "lairy one,"
Americans don't know what "lairy" is,
but lairy is loud, brash, I've got a role,
rather like in the Spice Girls, "We have a role."
"And my role in Girls Aloud is to be the loud..."
They called her "Hardcore Harding,"
because she liked to drink, she liked to party,
she liked to be loud.
But she said, "You know, that wasn't even me.
"I kind of lost myself in playing a part.
"I played that part for so long and so well,
"Hardcore Harding became who I was,
"but actually who I am is someone who likes to read
"and stay at home with my animals,
"but I felt I couldn't be that part."
And we saw that with Whitney Houston. Again,
this need to, "I've got to be what the public
"want me to be."
And when you pretend you're something you're not,
you pay a huge price, you lose yourself,
and secondly, you think, "Well, all these people like me
"but I'm playing a part that isn't me,
"so I don't know who they like anymore."
Be yourself, be true to yourself.
The people that like you for yourself really like you,
and that's so reassuring.
The people that don't, well, that's okay.
So be yourself, don't pretend to be someone else
to make people like you, because when you pull it off,
you think, "I pulled that off, but they don't like me,
"because they don't even know who I am."
But most of all, listen to your body when something changes,
when something is different, get medical advice.
It doesn't matter if it costs you a bit
to pay for a doctor, it doesn't matter if it's inconvenient.
You know that expression, "A stitch in time saves nine"?
When you get an illness early, you have a huge chance
of surviving it.
It's leaving it and leaving it and leaving it...
We had an amazing footballer in England
called Bobby Charlton, who was bleeding from the bottom,
and he said, "Oh, I was too embarrassed to see a doctor,
"I ignored that for years, and by the time I finally went,
"my wife said, 'You are going,' and marching me down,"
and he had stage four colon cancer,
and he didn't have enough time to recover from that.
So please, listen.
Eddie Van Halen was another one,
Eddie Van Halen was amazing, talented, passionate,
had lung cancer, carried on smoking,
just believed that somehow he'd be okay.
And now he's not here, and he's left behind a partner
and a child.
So listen to your body and get help.
There are so many people out there that can help you,
help you stop smoking, help you stop drinking,
help you live a healthier life,
and, most of all, help you with medical intervention.
Listen to your body, tune in, if it tells you,
"Something is wrong, something is different,
"something is off," don't ignore it, don't bury your head
in the sand.
Early intervention can save your life.
So you might be embarrassed that you've got
bleeding from somewhere very personal,
doctors don't care, they see that every day.
You might be embarrassed to have to put
your breasts in a mammogram machine,
but nobody cares.
Save your own life.
And if you know someone else who's said,
"Oh, I've got this lump, this itch, this rash,
"this bleeding, I'm sure it's nothing."
Say, "Well, it probably is nothing,
"but we need to get that checked."
Only today, I was talking to someone who said,
"You know, I woke up and my baby wasn't kicking,
"and I thought, 'Something's wrong. Oh, it's fine.
"'I'll just clean the house, and do stuff,'
"and I continued to ignore it until my husband came home
"and said, 'Get in the car.'
"Went to hospital and my baby had died.
"And if I'd only gone that morning when I first felt,
"'Hmm, something's off,' they would've delivered him
"and he would've survived, but I didn't listen
"to my intuition."
Your gut instinct, your gut is called "the second brain,"
even by doctors.
So when you have a gut instinct,
a feeling, "Something's not right, something's off,
"something has changed here, something is happening,"
go and get the best professional advice,
because, remember, early intervention can save your life,
it can save someone else's.
Please don't ignore symptoms.
Don't Google them and go, "Oh, well, I'm tired,
"I'm stressed, I've eaten some beetroot,
"that's why I'm bleeding.
"I ate lots of berries, and maybe that's why this red
"is coming out in my bodily fluids," that's a good way
to say it, isn't it?
Listen to your body, get early advice,
early intervention. And, you know, we can't bring Sarah
or Jade or Eddie Van Halen back,
but we can learn from them, and they probably
would like that, that if they're losing their life
could save their life, it's not entirely in vain.
So please get early advice, get early intervention,
and plan to live until you're 102.
That's what I plan to do.
See you soon.