Doctors gave me days to live but six months later I’m still here – I’m going to make 50, says Jonnie Irwin

IT was the news that Escape To The Country’s Jonnie Irwin had dreaded.

Lying in a hospice bed crippled by pain, doctors warned he wouldn’t make his twins’ third birthday party two weeks later.

The star’s weight had dipped dangerously low, to just SIX STONE, and he was so weak he struggled to walk.

Wife Jess took him home to spend what the couple feared would be their final, precious days together with twins Rafa and Cormac, and their big brother Rex, four.

But the much-loved host, who also presented A Place In The Sun, dumbfounded doctors with his indomitable will to live.

He not only got to watch his twins turn three in June, but now — nearly six months after that hospice stay — he is jetting off to Spain to celebrate the 50th birthday he feared he would never see.

Jonnie said: “Lying in the hospice, I thought I’d had it.

“I was on the cusp of death.

“I’d never thought about dying, despite the cancer, and Jess and I don’t talk about it.

‘I was skin and bones’

“But at my weakest point I thought, ‘This is it, this is the beginning of the end’.

“I couldn’t eat, I had incredible pain in my back and was just skin and bones.

“I was just lying there in a hospice bed, sleeping a lot of the time.”

Incredibly, Jonnie refused to give up and, when he returned home, started forcing himself out of bed, drinking protein shakes to build up his strength and spending hours in an oxygen tent in a bid to curb any growth of the disease.

He has undergone treatment, including chemotherapy, and today 5ft 10in Jonnie weighs 8st 6lb, goes on days out with his children and is determined to live as long as he can following recent radiation treatment for a new, 1.5cm cancer growth on his brain.

“I won’t let cancer define me,” said Jonnie, who spoke to us from his newly renovated home in Newcastle.

“A friend of mine told me, ‘Your body achieves what your mind achieves’, and I want to live by that.”

Jonnie has defied the odds since he was given just six months to live after being diagnosed with lung cancer which had spread to his brain in August 2020.

Revealing his condition in November last year, he vowed: “My attitude is that I’m living with cancer, not dying from it.”

But the popular host was then left heartbroken when bosses failed to renew his contract to present his beloved Channel 4 property show matching people with their perfect pad overseas.

Jonnie claimed production company Freeform took the decision amid issues with insurance.

He has carried on working for A Place In The Sun roadshows, run by a different company.

And he has been recording segments for BBC Morning Live — a job he says he loves.

Jonnie is also running his own property business finding clients their dream homes.

In January, he threw an early 50th birthday party to celebrate this month’s special milestone.

Among the guests were A Place In The Sun co-star Jasmine Harman, 47, and ex-England cricketer Andrew Caddick, 54.

In a bid to survive, Jonnie had started a special diet when he was diagnosed, cutting out meat and carbs and eliminating sugar — but it meant he began to lose weight.

By late May his pain had reached such excruciating levels he required large amounts of morphine, leaving him with no appetite.

Jonnie said: “I remember looking in the mirror and being shocked by what I saw.

“I was skin and bones.

“I’d always been proud of my body, but I felt disgusting.

“I wasn’t eating and my appetite had completely gone.

“I knew I needed to come off the morphine.

“You have to take control.

“You have to tell the doctors when you’re in pain and when you need an alternative — and I’d advise anyone with cancer to do the same.”

Jonnie was taken into St Oswald’s Hospice in Newcastle, where doctors switched his medication from morphine to fentanyl.

The drug, synonymous with thousands of deaths in America, is commonly used for cancer patients.

Once in the hospice, Jonnie says his health deteriorated dramatically despite the “amazing care and lovely nurses”.

Sitting with wife Jess in front of a cosy fire, he recalled: “I was in a lot of back pain and very weak.

“I was spending hours just lying there sleeping and all the signs were there that it could be the end.

‘Too weak to go on’

“One day, the oncologist, hospice doctors and a couple of nurses came in and started telling me to go home and spend time with my family.

“The penny didn’t drop at first.

“My ears only heard, ‘You’re going home’ because I was pretty out of it. It was only later I thought, ‘They were telling me I’m done’.”

Jess, 40, added: “I really thought Jonnie was going to die.

“I didn’t think he’d come out of the hospice at one point.

"He was sleeping more and more and he just wasn’t improving.

“The doctors said, ‘We are sending him home and we’d advise you to spend as much time together as you can’.

“They weren’t as blunt as to give us a date, but when I told them we’d got a big party planned for the twins and asked if we should cancel it, the medics said they didn’t think Jonnie would be there for it.

“It was devastating.”

Jess, who married Jonnie in 2016, previously told The Sun how the disease had shattered their dreams for the future.

She said: “I’m angry that this is happening, and maybe that’s a defence mechanism I’ve put in place.

“If I ever think about the reality, it absolutely breaks my heart — for the boys and for Jonnie.

"It’s just very unfair and I’m angry at how much it’s ruined the last couple of years, how much it’s taken away from us.”

What the doctors hadn’t factored in, though, was Jonnie’s resolve.

He said: “It could have been the end, but I thought, ‘No, that’s not me, that’s not happening’.

“When I got home I made myself get out of bed, no matter how bad I felt, and spent time with Jess and the boys.

“Don’t get me wrong, there were times I said to Jess, ‘I think I’m dying’ because I felt too weak to go on.

“But coming off morphine meant I got some of my appetite back and I started drinking protein shakes and began to regain some weight.”

Jonnie also spends one to two hours a day in an O2Worx hyperbaric oxygen tent.

Some studies have shown flooding the body with oxygen can prevent cancer growth.

Despite regaining enough strength to do some very light weight training at home, Jonnie suffered another setback in September.

He was at the First Time Buyers Readers’ Awards, hosted by Nicki Chapman — where the inaugural Jonnie Irwin Legacy gong was handed out — when he suffered blurred vision and was taken to hospital.

Tests revealed a 1.5cm cancer growth on his brain.

Jonnie had radiotherapy and is waiting for the results of scans to find out if the treatment worked.

In the meantime, the family will jet off this week to celebrate his birthday in the sun.

He said: “I never thought I’d be here.

“I’m really looking forward to some time with Jess and the boys.”