Last month, Barry Dubios announced on The Living Room that sadly his cancer had returned after six years.
The 57-year-old, who was first diagnosed with plasmacytoma myeloma in 2010, recently opened up about his battle on Osher Günsberg’s podcast.
“When I got the news again this time around, I was so angry. I was pissed off at myself, at the world, at everything,” he said.
“Because six years ago when I got it, we didn’t have children and I would have said to you I’ve had the best life anyone could have. If this is my day, it’s my day. But when you have children, yeah I’m not ready to go yet.”
Barry, who is a father to five-year-old twins, Arabella and Bennet, is keeping positive.
“As much as my scans look like I’ve been shot with a shotgun – I’ve got over 100 tumours in me, 28 pretty major ones through my middle – I don’t believe I’m going anywhere,” he told Osher about his aggressive cancer.
The design expert revealed he’s not ready to tell his children that he’s sick.
“How do you explain to a five-year-old who thinks that Peppa Pig is a real person that Daddy is going through something really bad?,” he said.
“Why does a five-year-old need to know that? Daddy is exercising every day, Daddy is meditating every day and Daddy cuddles me every day.”
Barry also opened up about the struggles he and his wife Leonie have had in the past with having children.
“We had 13 miscarriages through IVF, we sat on an adoption list in China for four years, then we had six attempts at surrogacy in India and then I got cancer,” he candidly said.
“We determined I had to have chemotherapy so we froze some sperm which meant looking at my sperm really close up and learning that 95 per cent of my sperm was defragmented. So then we knew that we could pick out the good five per cent and they made my children. My life is perfect. Everything about my life is amazing.”
On the October 20 episode of The Living Room, Barry announced his cancer diagnosis.
“It seems that my cancer has come back, reasonably aggressively now I have what is regarded as multiple myeloma. We’ve got a cancer in my body that has created several tumours right through my body,” he said on the show. (You can watch the full clip above.)
“Now I see an upside to that, this is just another fight for me that I am quite comfortable I am going to win.”
“It’s going to be a tough gig and what’s given me strength … is I know how much support I have from you guys and how much support we get as a show and as a TV family.
In the next month, Barry will finish his fourth cycle of chemo and will have a bone marrow transplant in late January/early February. The vicious disease seems to run in the family.
Barry’s mum passed away from cancer in 2004 and his wife got it in 2005. But the Dubois family are fighters and with his fierce determination to beat it, we have faith he will.
