The Living Room favourite Barry Du Bois has shared an honest and emotional update on his cancer battle.
The 62-year-old star, who has previously described his cancer as “not curable”, suffers with Plasmacytoma Myeloma, a cancer of the immune system.
After being in remission for seven years, in 2017 the star discovered the disease had returned “reasonably aggressively”.
WATCH: Amanda Keller has emotional reunion with Barry Du Bois
While continuing his work as a TV presenter, designer and columnist, Barry has also remained vocal throughout his treatment.
Most recently, he opened up about his enduring sense of optimism and shared his reasoning as to why he maintains such a sense of vulnerability.
Taking to Instagram, the star shared a mid-treatment picture and wrote:
“During a podcast last week the host thanked me for being so open with my emotions. She said we really don’t know each other that well and to expose my feelings so openly, honestly was very brave to allow that vulnerability.”
“I explained that after being forced into the ring with terribly vicious opponents like cancer, it is not a scary thing for me to allow emotions to surface when sharing a painful story,” he continued.
“So I don’t see it as brave and have learnt that expressing your emotions rather than suppressing then helps to self-reflect and gain emotional resilience.”
Speaking to New Idea in 2019, he shared further insight into his personal journey. In 2004, Barry lost his mother to breast and bowel cancer, but the difficult times didn’t stop there when his wife, Leonie Tobler, went on to be diagnosed with cervical cancer.
“I lost my mum, my wife got cancer and everything started to unwind,” Barry said.
“I just didn’t want to talk, I closed down.”
In October 2017, Barry first shared the devastating news that his cancer had returned – this time it was much more aggressive, but still, he was determined to stay positive, and his fight inspired us all.
“My answer to my diagnosis wasn’t negative, it was all about how can we best prepare ourselves to deal with the battle ahead. There will always be battles in life and it’s always about being ready and best prepared to deal with them,” he wrote.
The star also spoke to Australian Men’s Health in 2019 to share that he works on maintaining and improving his health as much as possible. He focuses on being as proactive as he can with his wellbeing; for himself and his children.
“What I have is not curable. But I’m in a great place. I’m as good as someone can be who has multiple myeloma,” he told the publication.
“What I want is for my children to be able to tell their children one day that their dad was a powerful man.”
