It is a very rare affliction. A GP would expect to meet it once in a career and this form of brain cancer is unpredictable and dangerous. Usually, this tumour might give you only a two-year span since its discovery. I have had two operations and one course of radiotherapy and now three chemotherapies (one currently starting). My death is, in a sense, imminent. I say to myself: I am dying. Something in my head is hurrying to kill me.
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 May 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 209 →I had a gun shoved in my eyeball in New York by a crack dealer in the 1980s. I have also watched somebody next to me get shot in the head in a gun battle – that was in Jamaica in the early 1990s.
Where do I begin? There have been a lot.
After the war, when I was about nine, we were held up in our home. The robbers grabbed my father and had a gun at his throat. It was terrifying. My mother got a wad of money and gave it to the people, and they ran away.
More from Juliet Stevenson
View profile →I really wanted a role in Harry Potter and I never got one.
I get a lot of abuse online because of my opposition to the assault on Gaza. The abuse is horrific, but I’ve learned to ignore it. The integrity of how you live your life is more important than what strangers think.
I talk too much.
Impulsive, enthusiastic, determined.
Not being able to run.
A deep sense that they will be fine in the world without me.
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Julia Ormond, Rose McGowan, Irvine Welsh, Suzanne Vega, Edith Bowman, Seann Walsh
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