Making Sense of Cancer with Hannah Fry, review: a probing account of how the disease is treated
Telegraph Reporters
2 min read
Professor Hannah Fry questions medical orthodoxy in this inspiring film
Making Sense of Cancer with Hannah Fry, review: a probing account of how the disease is treated
I’ve long been a fan of Professor Hannah Fry. Her TV documentaries (The Joy of Data) and regular radio slots (including Radio 4’s The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry) never fail to make numbers engaging. Yet I had no idea that she’d been seriously unwell, so Making Sense of Cancer with Hannah Fry (BBC Two) was an eye-opener in more ways than one.
Her first words in this engrossing, enlightening film were: “F–k, that means I might be stage three.” After putting off her smear test for six months, Fry was diagnosed with “a cervical tumour the size of a gobstopper” at age 36. She immediately bought a stack of books and set up a “cancer research cave” at home.
Taking refuge in statistics, Fry deployed her formidable mathematical brain to dig deep into how we diagnose and treat the disease. Was surgery really necessary? Were the side-effects of chemotherapy worth it when it saves a life in only five per cent of cases?
In parallel with her investigation, she recorded a raw, refreshingly vanity-free video diary. Fry filmed herself wearing hospital gowns and “devilishly sexy” compression tights. Her main fear, she sobbed, was not being around for her two young daughters.
Fry argued that more honest conversations were needed. Frightened patients, understandably, want doctors to take control but don’t interrogate their advice. Rather than face reality, we cling to false hope. Our approach to cancer, Fry suggested,
had become over-medicalised and risk-averse. Yet as she admitted: “There’s a disconnect between what the numbers say and how it feels when you’re the number.”
Reluctantly, since she’d hoped to have a third child, Fry underwent a radical hysterectomy. When she found out it had worked, it was a lovely moment. Combining the personal with the universal, while bravely questioning medical orthodoxy, this inspiring film left me an even bigger Fry fan.
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