Magda Szubanski reveals her cancer, now in remission, is ‘incurable’

Magda Szubanski, the comedian famous for the Kath & Kim character Sharon Strzelecki, has revealed that, while she is in remission, her recent cancer is “incurable” and likely to return.

In a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday night, the 65-year-old said she was recovering, while giving a sombre update on her condition: the median survival rate of her cancer was 8½ years.

“The great news is I’m in deep remission from my cancer,” Szubanski told Tracy Grimshaw. “It means that you’re not cured, but it’s at bay. It’s what’s called an incurable relapse in cancer; it’s almost sure that it will come back – it’s a question of when and then how bad.

“The median survival rate is 8½ years … I could go less, or I could go more.”

Szubanski posted a video updating her followers on Instagram in May last year that she was diagnosed with a “fast-moving” stage-four mantle cell lymphoma, before delivering the news in February that she had entered remission.

According to the Leukemia Foundation, mantle cell lymphoma is a rare, usually aggressive type of blood cancer that starts in the lymph nodes, part of the body’s immune system.

Szubanski said that, during chemo, she was in immense pain and was “so unwell [with a] tiredness, a fatigue … I’ve never felt it in my life”.

“It’s like, ‘Oh my god, I feel like my thighs. I feel like my bones are splitting.’ It was very unpleasant, and that’s because my bone marrow was inflamed and was expanding,” she said.

“It was very painful. It would wake me up in the middle of the night. I’d literally wake up going with my sort of dream voice saying ‘You’re dying, you’re dying.’ So I really it was like, there’s something wrong here.”

In the interview with Grimshaw, Szubanski opens up about more than just her cancer.

She also discusses the difficulties of being gay in the 1970s, and reveals what it was like learning, after her mother’s death, that her mother had been raped at the age of eight.

That made Magda reflect on her own experiences of childhood abuse.

“It’s a very raw thing for me to speak about it publicly; it’s also to relieve yourself of the shame, actually,” Szubanski said.

“Ihat, that I was a little girl who was groomed. It took my strength away from me … I was a feisty little, fun kid, you know? And I think that shame, that hurt me.”

The interview is a teaser for Szubanski’s upcoming memoir I Can’t Tell You But I Will, out on September 29.

In typical good humour, Szubanski’s said her results put her “in good stead” but that we all live with “Damocles’ sword hanging over our heads”.

“But for those of us who it hangs by only a couple of strands, it’s a very different feeling. It is just a different state of consciousness. It’s a different awareness of death. It’s not abstract,” she said.

Szubanski shares more about her memoir and her cancer journey with Michael Idato in Good Weekend this Saturday.

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