Finding out that she has only a 3% chance of not developing cancer made Michelle Brasier live differently – it changed her outlook KasiaLDelgado reports:
‘There’s something oddly liberating in knowing what you’ll probably die from,’ says Michelle Brasier When Michelle Brasier was 18, her dad was diagnosed with cancer. A week later, he died. “I had no concept of grief until then,” says the actor and comedian, “I’d been so lucky until that point”. After her father died, Brasier’s “young, fit, healthy” brother, Paul, also got sick with cancer and died at the age of 42, less than 12 months after his initial diagnosis.
For a while after being given this news, Brasier was very scared. “I did go quite mad after my brother’s death. I was a touring musician at the time, and I drank a lot of whisky and kissed a lot of mouths. But then after a while, I came to this absurd acceptance of it all, and although still scared, I began to find what the doctor had told me quite freeing.
As well as a mindset shift, she also has changed practical aspects of her life. “I travel and I take chances and I do things I’m afraid of. I say nice things to people that would before have felt embarrassing. If I pass by a stranger and think they look really nice in the colours they’re wearing, I’ll tell them so. I want to make your day better because I don’t know if it’s your last day. I don’t assume people are annoyed with me if they don’t text me back for ages, I assume they’re just busy.
After being confronted with her own mortality, Brasier decided to take a risk – to pursue her dream of being a comedian, without hesitation or worry. She had previously been an actor but started writing her own comedy material. In March, Brasier is performing her musical comedy,“I figured that my brother was 42 when he died, I might not have that long,” she says. “I decided I was going to do what I want to do.
Does Brasier ever miss the ignorance she had before finding out about the 97 per cent? “Yeah, I miss ignorance, but the life that I lead now and have led since this all happened is much better than the life I would have led If I didn’t know.”
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