Boris’ estranged wife Marina Wheeler was diagnosed with cervical cancer as PM plotted path to Downing Street
BORIS Johnson's estranged wife, Marina Wheeler, has revealed she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in May as her ex announced he would be running for Prime Minister.
Marina, 54, and now cancer free has revealed it was her sister and the four children she shares with Boris who helped her through the illness.
Her diagnosis came as BoJo was shacked up with his 31-year-old PR guru girlfriend Carrie Symonds, and plotting to become the new PM.
Boris and new girlfriend Carrie came under fire after a well-publicised row recorded by neighbours who claimed she yelled "get off me" and "get out of my flat".
Marina says although her doctor's explanation of the diagnosis was "clear and careful," the gravity of the situation didn't quite hit her.
CANCER WAS 'PROFOUND EXPERIENCE'
"I was unimpressed. Clutching a leaflet, I left thinking, “That’s absurd. I have no time for this. Quite apart from anything else, I have a book to write.” I had already missed my deadline twice," she writes.
Marina says at first, nurses sized her up as "polite, strong-willed but not really thinking straight" but now describes her brush with cancer as a “profound experience."
She said the experience has underlined “the incalculable value of holding close those who you love and trust”.
Marina describes her sister, Shirin as her "saviour".
"She was with me all the time and kept friends and family in the loop.
"She was endlessly attentive and took the unsavoury stuff in her stride," Marina writes in a piece for .
Marina explains how it was the thought of her four children that really put things in perspective for her following her initial "unimpressed" feeling towards the cancer diagnosis.
The top barrister is mum to Lara Lettice, 26, Milo Arthur, 24, Cassie Peaches, 22 and Theodore Apollo, 20.
SURVIVAL
She writes that dates for her two intrusive surgeries clashed with a trip she had planned to Moscow, and had asked if they could be changed - but once the nurse started asking after her children and using words like "dependants" and "survival," she knew her trip was "doomed".
Marina said that she had no symptoms but found out she had the illness at Whittington Hospital in north London.
She was immediately sent to University College Hospital's gynae-oncology unit.
The London hospital is the same one at which she gave birth to her youngest child, Theodore.
She describes how, ironically, she underwent her second op - which she describes as "the big one" - exactly 20 years to the day that she had given birth to him in the same hospital.
"Twenty years ago to the day, I had given birth, here in UCH [University College Hospital], to my youngest child.
"I told him firmly to enjoy his birthday and not to visit.
"His girlfriend and I cooked up elaborate plans to keep him occupied. But he turned up anyway," she writes.
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None of Boris and Marina's four children appeared to be present as he officially moved into Number 10, while Carrie Symonds supported from the sidelines.
The ex-couple's eldest, Lara Lettice - who styles herself with the double barrelled surname Johnson-Wheeler - was once heard calling her PM dad a "selfish b*****d."
She is said to have added: "Mum is finished with him. She will never take him back now."
Marina was given the all-clear in July, as Boris Johnson was elected leader of the conservative party and became Britain's PM.
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