Barry Du Bois’ cancer battle: How I fought for one more second with my family
The Living Room star Barry Du Bois has battled cancer. Twice. It forced him to leave no stone unturned in a quest to improve his approach to life. Now he’s bringing that message to Adelaide.
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Mate, I want you to take six breaths.
Just breathe through your nose so you can literally feel your lungs expanding.
You know the drill?
But while you’re doing that I want you to identify if the air is cooler going in, or cooler coming out.
The interview by this point has officially descended (or ascended depending on your perspective) into a health therapy session.
I promise if you do this six times a day, you’ll feel better.
And you might even live longer.
Barry Du Bois was lying in a hospital bed ravaged by cancer, too sick to have his twins Arabella and Bennet and wife Leonie come to visit. His hair was falling out, he was in significant pain and he’d lost upwards of 30kg.
In that moment he made a decision.
He would, in his own words, “eat s**t” if it meant spending just one more hour with his family.
One. More. Hour.
From there, he looked under every rock he could find to get better.
He dug deep into every scrap of information he could find.
“When I hear someone say I put my whole life into this gold medal, I put my whole life into my softball, it does my head in,” he says.
“Because when you are being told, okay, you’ve got three months to live, you suddenly realise that your life is like a river.
“And in three months, you can see the end.
“So that end is a waterfall … and you do whatever you can to push it back.
“So I looked, and I’m still looking, for every advantage I can find to give me an extra second, an extra day, maybe a week, or even a month with my children and this beautiful life that I’ve been gifted.”
He threw himself into everything he could think of: proper breathing, meditation, yoga, genuine nutrition.
He set about unlocking the secrets of improving blood circulation or, as he refers to it, oxygenation of the blood.
It was a long list. As he discovered one new idea, others would emerge.
A trained builder, who had run a successful property development business and was becoming an increasingly popular face on TV, he was no expert on holistic health, something we now refer to as “wellness”.
So he became one.
“I just looked into everything humans are designed to do,” he says.
He doesn’t want to undermine other people’s experiences, or trivialise their pain, and he says his evidence is, at best, anecdotal, but of the half dozen or so people in his isolated cancer ward after his second bout, he says he is one of the few still alive.
“I made sure that there was an exercise bike in the room. In the first week or two I couldn’t use it anyway,” he says.
“But I was getting out of bed.
“I’m the only one that did the oxygenation. I’m the only one that was doing meditation every day. I was the only one working out when I was struggling to lift up a shoe.
“That’s the only evidence I’ve got. One of the other guys made it and he ended up following the same routine. But I’m not here to tell anyone what to do, or to say anyone is right or wrong, or to predict what might or might not happen.
“All I’m doing is relaying my experience. And that’s my experience”
He is, however, convinced this stubborn approach has allowed him many, many more precious seconds with his family.
It has, he says, allowed him to forge a successful television career, to become an advocate for the likes of RUOK? Day and Leukaemia Foundation, and to champion the use of integrated oncology (mixing alternative therapies with standard medicine), to be part of the National Blood cancer report 2023.
It even allowed an ultimately short-lived play for the Senate.
Significantly, it allowed him to develop a solid blueprint for living a healthy and meaningful life.
Du Bois’s cancer was plasmacytoma, a cancer of the immune system. It first reared its head in 2010 and returned in 2017 as multiple myeloma.
The first bout destroyed the vertebrae at the top of his spine, forcing him to get a titanium implant. The second knocked him flat through chemotherapy.
Today, speaking from South Africa where he is in the middle of a safari tour, he says he is “still living with blood cancer and will for the rest of my days”, but is, at this very point, a picture of health.
“I’m 63 and, without being silly, look 55. I reckon I could outrun the average 40 year old. I swim, I do a lot of meditation and yoga. I’m in a good place,” he says. However, the one-time boxer also knows the fight is far from over.
“I know this thing never goes away so when I need to step into the ring again, I need to be prepared for the fight,” he says.
“In one way or another, every single one of us needs to be ready to step into the ring.
“It’ll be you and whatever you’re facing will be the world champion in your weight division.”
That moment in the hospital bed was all part of a journey that changed Du Bois’s life.
Now as he prepares to head to South Australia from his Sydney home to spread his wellness message, he’s hoping it might help to change a few more.
Most people will know Barry Du Bois from the much-lovedand multi Logie Award-winning The Living Room, the lifestyle show which covered everything from renovations to pet advice, which was mysteriously “rested” by Channel 10 this year after a solid decade on air.
He remains close with co-hosts Amanda Keller, Dr Chris Brown and Miguel Maestre, but has his doubts the show will make a return, particularly since Brown recently signed a two-year deal with Channel 7.
“I thought it was a mistake to take us off personally,” Du Bois says.
“It’s the sort of show you can watch for three generations of people. There’s not many shows on TV where you can do that anymore.
“There’s not many shows, you know, that bring that sense of belonging, that sense of security. And that’s what our show delivered. That’s why we all liked it. And we all love each other.
“We love the people that allowed us into their living rooms; that was a good place to be. We also talked to a lot of people that were going through cancer. We helped a lot of people going through cancer so, for me, that was a gift that just worked perfectly with my life; sharing what works for me and allowing and encouraging others that this may work for you.”
He still loves TV, however, and would never rule out a return.
“If I could do something around wellness and if I could work with Amanda and Chris and Miguel, I’d do it. I love those guys,” he says.
For now, though, he’s working on spreading the wellness message.
He’s developing his own platform and next week comes to the Adelaide Hills as part of the Wellness Wander 2023, the Adelaide Hills-based festival that last grew out of the community response to the devastating bushfires of 2019-20.
The aim, at the time, was to help rebuild and promote industries and businesses ravaged by the fires, and to continue the community’s healing. And, eventually, to turn the Hills into the wellness capital of Australia.
Adelaide Hills Tourism chair Martin Radcliffe says the whole process has given the Hills a new lease of life and has encouraged its “innovative and passionate” tourism operators to develop more wellness offerings.
He is bullish about what it means for the area.
“The sector will continue to grow in line with global trends which means that the region will see considerable economic and social benefit long into the future,” he says.
Now in its second year, running from Friday, March 31, to Sunday, April 2, there are more than 60 events targeting areas such as nature, creativity, relaxation and provenance, with a focus on social, physical and mental wellbeing.
Last year it pumped upwards of $750,000 into the Hills economy. Hopes are high for eclipsing this with Covid concerns and restrictions largely in the rearview mirror.
Du Bois is part of the Sensory Journey event at the Ukaria Cultural Centre (which combines talks, food, nurturing and healing), where he will tell his story and also share tips on how to transform homes into space that supports health and wellbeing (hot tip: he’s big on indoor plants).
He says his aim is to simply be honest and to try and help people, regardless of how much or how little they know about wellness, or his own experience.
“Wellness is fundamentally about putting yourself in the best position to be healthy,” he says. Something that might be as simple as people switching off their phones.
“We’re looking for you to have a holistic health experience, which is some exercise that might help oxygenation of the blood, some human movement, the understanding of good nutrition,” he says.
“There’s a better understanding of mindfulness and stillness, which is very important to the brain.
“Our brain is the one muscle that does need a break every now and then. And definitely needs a break from stimulants like coffee and telephones and emails.”
Then there’s the importance of sleep.
“The most important thing in your regimen is your sleep,” he says.
“In the past, if you looked at me, you’d think I was healthy. “I had muscles all over the joint, and all that sort of stuff, but I wasn’t healthy. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t getting the oxygenation that I required.”
So, if someone is looking for a place to start all this, Barry, where do they start?
“Start with breathing,” he says.
It’s a few days later and Barry Du Bois’s words are coming through the dictaphone.
Breathe in deeply. Right through your nose. Make sure you can really feel your lungs expand.
Just be still and breathe. REALLY breathe.
I follow the instructions.
I have no idea if it will help me live any longer.
But by the end of the six breaths, I sure feel a whole lot better. ■
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