Does Herpes Kill Melanoma?
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Hello from Limerick and welcome to another episode of Telling Everybody Everything. I have not been to Limerick very often. I'm sure I must have done a show here before. I'm really in and out of the venue. I haven't even been outside today. So I don't ever know if I've been to a city before until I walk out on stage and I'm like, oh yeah.

and they have taken care of us so beautifully. Of course there were cheese and onion tatoes in the dressing room and my tour manager Annie and I were so lucky leaving Heathrow on Thursday morning. We got the first flight out to Shannon which was delayed and you know we are coming to the end of the tour. It is just about April that means there's three months left of what has been

a like 100 date tour. It's been all around Europe and all around the UK and Ireland and I'm doing some shows in Canada. Oh, here's something. If you have purchased tickets to my Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal shows in May in Canada following the Canada's Got Talent live final,

Uh, you might be interested to know that we are going to add a Toronto show and we are also going to add an Ottawa show. Controversially, instead of doing a late, late night extra show, I have pushed for matinees. These tickets will go on sale any day now if they haven't already. So just please keep checking back. Something tells me they go on sale the 31st of March. That's Monday, but I'm telling you now on Friday, um, 4 p.m.

matinee was contentious with Ottawa. In Toronto, they didn't bat an eyelid. They were like, yep, 4 p.m., no problem. And I feel like a lot of my people will want to go to a 4 p.m. show. I think a lot of people work from home now. I think a lot of people have flexible hours where they can get out of work at 3.30 on a day to go to a show. I really believe that. And I think that they would much rather do so

Then come to like a 9.30 p.m. show. I don't care what you're putting on. You could be like, Catherine, great news. Celine Dion is doing a very intimate concert right on your street at 9.30 p.m. I'll be like, well, I can't go. I can't make it. 9.30 a.m. I'll be there. 9.30 p.m. What? So I'll be there till 11.30. That's nearly the next day. Do I look like someone who has access to MDMA? I'm not going.

And that would be hard for me because I do love Celine Dion, but I am far more likely to attend a 4pm show. And so the venue will not give us a guarantee. The venue is like, we really think this is a bad idea. And I said, please can we do the matinee, Ottawa? Please can we do it? And now maybe they are a little bit more strict in Ottawa because of the political element. I don't know. Maybe the Ottawa people, they don't leave work early. And it is a Thursday, I believe, in Ottawa, but don't quote me on that.

It seems, you know, a little bit risky, but I want to do it as an experiment. I don't even mind if I lose money on this show. I want to move the world in the direction of the matinee. So prove them wrong, Ottawa, and get tickets for my 4 p.m. matinee. I'm not asking you to come at lunchtime. I'm not asking you to come at 2. New York Broadway time. I'm asking you to come at 4 p.m. You'll be out of there at 6 p.m.

You can have dinner with your family and be better at your usual time. And you can even be a bit pissed. Have a drink at the show. Have a drink at 4 p.m. Oh, it's going to be bliss.

But anyway, coming to the end of the tour, it has been a little bit punishing. We've been traveling a lot again. We've been on flights. I'm also doing a whole bunch of new projects in London. So when I do spend three days at home, I spend those days filming. I do feel guilty about being away from my small children, but luckily they are of an age where we can FaceTime and I get to put them to bed the nights that I'm home and it's fine. We've had the little melanoma complication this week, which I will speak about more later.

But we get to the airport Thursday morning, the first flight to Shannon. It's delayed. But when we finally get on the plane, what the hell? We realize that for a 60 minute flight, we are on one of those big, beautiful transatlantic planes. If you get the first flight out of Heathrow to Shannon in the morning, you get the plane that travels to America. So if you're in business class, you get to lie down.

What a treat that was. What a little travel hack for you guys. Are you thinking, oh yeah, I'll just take Ryanair to Shannon later in the afternoon because I've got an event in Limerick in the evening. No, no, no, no. You go to Terminal 2 and you take the Aer Lingus first flight in the morning, the 10 a.m. to Shannon and you book yourself a business class ticket and you get yourself a bed. It's not really long enough to sleep. It was such a short flight. There

But I laid the hell down and I had a sweet 20 minute nap. It was great. And Bobby's being as supportive as he can be. I mean, he's being really great with the kids. He does have the support of a nanny. He does have Violet, but we do get lonely for each other. Like we are best friends. And he's like, oh, you got to do less. You got to start doing less. You got to stop saying yes to everything. You have to do less. And I appreciate that a lot of people...

would do less. And like Bobby's Canadian, and he's a laid back guy. And I think a lot of the people that I grew up with do have the mindset of like work life balance. Let's do less. Let's go fishing. Let's just do our job in the week and take the weekend off to have fun. All right. I respect those people. They are probably not, you know, riddled with autoimmune disease. And their children don't speak fluent Filipino like mine.

So I mean, it's good. But this is not the life that he married into. And I'm like, Bobby, at what point has this behavior been like new to you? This is how I've always been. It's not year round. You know the pattern by now. So when Bobby and I first got together, I had a bit of time off, but I was going into filming The Duchess for Netflix. And then he didn't see me for like three solid months.

And then we had lockdown. We saw each other a lot. Then when we had Fred, it was time for me to do a tour. We tried it as the Osbournes, you know, an entire family traveling together. And that was hell. Fred really didn't like it. It didn't work for us. And then I didn't tour again for like two years. Fenugreys was born. I was home a lot. Of course, I'm always filming and doing things because like everybody works.

But now I'm in a touring season again, and we're just coming to the end. So I am going to need this man to hold out for three months. And instead of telling me to do less, tell me how you can empower me to do more, but like more easily. I'm going to give you an update on all the melanoma stuff. But if you work for the Daily Mail, and God bless you,

And if you work for any tabloids, like please do your very best not to sensationalize this because I will say last week I was in Edinburgh. I got the call right as I was setting up to do my podcast that a mole that I had had removed was melanoma. It came back from histology, melanoma in situ, which is a very low grade early melanoma, but it's melanoma nevertheless. And

And so I said it on my podcast because I have a weekly podcast and I always say what's going on with my life. I also do think it will help other people to be transparent about medical things. I think there was very actionable advice in telling people that they had to be their own advocates. I didn't mean to like slag off the NHS and maybe I spoke clumsily or too soon, but I do believe that

that a mole like this could or would have been missed by an NHS doctor. I never saw any dermatologist about my skin under the umbrella of the NHS, but I did see an NHS melanoma doctor privately and he said that the mole that he inspected on my arm did not fit the criteria to be removed.

And I think that when it's government funds, if you do not fit the criteria to have an expensive procedure, they probably won't do it for you. Now, since then, some other NHS doctors have been in touch and they've said, actually, Catherine, even if it didn't look like melanoma, you should have fit the criteria because of your medical history. Because you've had melanoma before, automatically, you should have fit the criteria for having a mole removed. But like that is up for debate.

Some doctors might have taken it off. Some doctors wouldn't have. The specific doctor that I saw privately, who five days a week is an NHS melanoma doctor, he did not think it needed to be taken off in the first instance. He was like, nope, definitely not melanoma. Goodbye. So I'm very lucky that I learned from someone else, Teddy Mellencamp, who is being very transparent about her journey with melanoma, that like I should be my own advocate and I should go back. And that's why I wanted to tell people, like if you think that

that there's something just not right with your body. You got to go back. And when I went back, the lovely man who, again, he said it doesn't look like melanoma. To his credit, it didn't look like melanoma. It didn't. But because of my history and because it was a private doctor, he was like, I will remove her for you. Yes. And he did. And then he called me right before I was doing the podcast, said it was melanoma. He was surprised. I was surprised. And that was last week's podcast. So since then, I have been very aggressive about

at following up. I remembered that luckily, see, this is the thing, I have been very proactive since my 40th birthday. Luckily, I think I told you a few months ago in one of my other podcast episodes, I did a full body health check with Echelon, which is a private company that has different packages for health checks. I think normally their clients are like wealthy businessmen who are stressed out.

and might have heart attacks. Like I, that is my guess that that's mostly their client base. And they have found like very early evidence of brain tumors in people. They have found very early evidence of heart disease in people. And they have fixed that before it got to be life threatening. And I do, I do think that it doesn't have to be with Echelon, but everyone over 40, especially should probably invest whatever you can in preventative screening.

And if that's with the NHS, then so be it. But you might have to be pushy. And if that's private, then so be it. Whatever you can do, you just have to get in there. So about two years ago, maybe, I went through this process with Echelon. And interestingly, I didn't do the mole mapping. I should have, but things got complicated because I became pregnant with Phenogrease. I had to delay an MRI. There were things that I just didn't attend to, but I did most of it. So I had pretty recent blood work.

I had a very recent breast ultrasound, pelvic ultrasound. I had loads of screening with Echelon. So that made me feel really good when I got the diagnosis of melanoma. But like, okay, well, if this had been going on a long time and if I had been spreading, I probably would have had like other cancer markers come up in all of this blood work. And interestingly, I did go back and do the MRI test.

maybe eight months ago, six months ago. So I had a recent MRI and that was great. All of that made me feel great. Thank God I did the screening. However, when I got the melanoma diagnosis, I thought to myself, oh God, on that MRI, they did notice two lesions in my liver.

And at the time, the report said these are consistent with benign hemangiomas, which is like a misformation of blood vessels in your liver,

under four centimeters. In my case, one of them was two and a half centimeters. One was one centimeter. And it's a congenital thing. They don't know why like 20% of people have these benign hemangiomas. It's not cancerous. It's just a weird blood vessel formation that you just have when you're born and they don't know why. And there are no symptoms. Most people find it when they get a random scan for something else.

But because I was in the process of applying for life insurance and because I'd had a melanoma in the past, the advice from the MRI place was you should get an ultrasound just to like triple check that these are benign hemangiomas and not some other like more sinister lesion. And did I do that? No, I didn't. So then the melanoma diagnosis comes back. I think it's all fine. But then people start reaching out to me because it's,

you know, sometimes the press will very, you know, out of goodwill, take something and put it in the tabloids. And then I'm reading that like, oh my God, people are reaching out to me. Like I've got days to live. And I was like, what? No, I just have melanoma. It's surely not a big deal. It's not a big deal.

And I don't want to minimize it because melanoma is a big deal. And I have family members who have died from melanoma. I have family members who have beaten stage three melanoma, but like it runs in my family. I know how serious it is. A lot of people have reached out to me since the podcast to say that they or their loved one are battling melanoma. It's not a joke. Like it can be a very aggressive cancer. So like,

Here I am in the middle of like, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. And sort of quietly freaking out because I'm reading the tabloids. I'm away from my family. I'm reading loads of messages. And I remember in the back of my mind, I've got these lesions on my liver. So I was like, it's fine. It's totally gonna be fine. I get back to London. I go to the original, well, not the original private place that said they wouldn't remove my mole, but the place that did remove my mole, thankfully.

I went back there on Monday and I had a bit more of it, you know, removed because when it comes back melanoma, they have to excise a wider area.

piece to make sure that that is tested and comes back totally clear like they keep cutting some away until it comes back totally clear and the doctor was very confident that it would and he informed me further about the histology that it was not a secondary metastatic melanoma from the earlier one that I had in 2004 which would have mean it's it meant it spread from the earlier one but it was a new primary melanoma and it was very early stages so that is positive news

So that's done, that's off. The next day I like booked in for an ultrasound of my liver and that guy confirmed like this is a benign hemangioma, it's not cancer, it's the thing that you thought it was before. But to be like 1000% sure let's get you another MRI with dye. I don't really know what that means. If you drink the dye or they inject you with dye, I'm excited about any dye.

So I'm going to go back and do that. But I love that, you know, because I was vocal about it, because I'm being quite pushy now, everyone has just taken such good care of me and been extra careful. And they're screening everything. And I'm really pleased that these years ago, I went to Ashland for all of that screening. And the final thing I've done is reached out to an oncologist who I know through a mutual friend.

And this guy's a genius. Like I'm so lucky to know these people. He and his team developed a specific melanoma drug and they sold it. And it does, it's like, okay, it is got a long name. I-M-L-Y-G-I-C, Telomogene Laherperivepec. Why call something that? Like, why can't you just call it

Like I've developed a drug. The name for it is going to be Bob instead of like whatever the hell that means. Like no one can ever repeat that. Even if I say it to you now, you're not going to be able to be like, oh, let me take that information and pass it on.

I-M-L-Y-G-I-C, I think is the drug he developed. It's an oncolytic viral immunotherapy approved for treating unresectable cutaneous, subcutaneous, and nodal lesions in patients with melanoma that has recurred after initial surgery.

So I don't have that, but if I did, it's good to know this drug exists. Here's what it is. It is a type of gene therapy that uses a modified weakened herpes simplex 1 virus, the cold sore virus, to infect and kill melanoma cells. It replicates within melanoma cells, eventually causing them to burst and die, which is called oncolysis.

It also makes the infected melanoma cells produce a protein called GMCSF, which stimulates the patient's immune system to recognize and destroy melanoma cells. Great. Like look at the things that they're developing all the time. So that's good to know. And I'm also going to do genetic testing in addition to mole mapping with them to see if I have this melanoma gene in

And I think there is even medication to turn some of that gene off. It's just really good to know. And you know what? I'm absolutely sure I have a melanoma gene because on the maternal side of my family, we've had one very young death, which was an absolute tragedy. He was a great guy. He's got a youngish son. It started in his hip and then it went to his spine and it was just horrific.

And then also another woman in my family who had stage three and beat it, which is amazing, but all on my maternal side. And these are people who probably got more sun than I, well, I mean, everyone in the world has had more sun than I have. But for me to get melanoma when I've literally never spent a second in the sun, and this is the thing.

I believe that maybe people have thought I've been difficult before. When I say I don't want to go on warm holidays or when I turn up on these holidays dressed like a beekeeper. Or specifically when I filmed Romantic Getaway for Sky with my good friend Ramesh Ranganathan. We had a blast. Like I laughed and laughed and laughed.

more than I've ever laughed in my life, just every day crying with laughter filming that. If you haven't seen Romantic Getaway, it's on Sky. But we filmed some of it in Jersey, which was very sunny at the time. And I kept having to hold an umbrella or like hide in the shadows like a vampire. And I'm working with Ramesh, who is of ethnic Sri Lankan heritage. And

He can be in the sun and loads of British people, they're just standing in the sun. And I was like, I can't, I can't be in the sun. You guys don't understand. It hurts. And people were laughing at me and being like, oh, Catherine, you know, ha ha ha. No, it hurts me. Something is up with my skin and my melanin and my genetics. Like I am telling you guys, if I stand in the direct sunlight, it stings me. And I described it on Romantic Getaway, like pouring salt on a slug.

The sunlight touching me feels like that, like it hurts. And so I'm like diving under trees, holding up an umbrella, like it's humiliating, but like something is wrong with how my body responds to the sun, which is why I moved to the UK and is why I'm having such a good day in Ireland.

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So thank you for your many well wishes. Teddy Mellencamp even very kindly reached out to me.

we've been communicating, she asked me, you know, let me know if there's anything I can do. And I was just like, you know what, you have done so much for so many people, it is because of you and your transparency that I was reminded to advocate for myself and go in. And like, what an incredible woman. And all I can do is wish her well, on what is an ongoing navigation of melanoma for her. And I think that my thing is done.

And I'm doing all the right checks to follow up. But guys, Britain, summer is upon us. Please understand that if you look like me, especially, but even if you don't, we are defenseless against the sun. And you have to wear SPF every day. And you have to do mole mapping. There's somewhere called the Wellback Clinic that I'm going to go to and they have like AI mole mapping.

which is amazing. You just stand there and like all these cameras take pictures of your moles and then you go back periodically and it knows, like the AI knows if there have been any changes. And so how blessed are we to have access to this technology? And the last thing I'll say is the NHS is magnificent. It's no one within the NHS that I have a problem with. It is, of course, the top-down governmental cutting of funds that

That makes the NHS so tightly squeezed that they have to make decisions based on arbitrary criteria over like who gets what treatment and you have to wait for appointments. That's not anyone's fault in the NHS. And I know that if you are sick, then they do look after you. They do an incredible job. I know people whose children have been sick who have been completely just so well looked after by the NHS.

And so it is a system that works when it works. But if it was just properly funded, then it could do better. So that's that. I made a rule for myself that I was not going to entertain femicide anymore on Netflix, on Prime, on Disney, Hulu, whatever we're watching, Veeps, Channel 4,

It's been a struggle for me to watch adolescence. I know everybody loves it. I know it's not glorifying the murder of a young woman. I know that, but it is a trigger for me. I don't like to see it at all. It informs fears that I already have, and I just don't think those fears need to be fed. But Bobby and I, we did enjoy adolescence. It was beautifully shot. Stephen Graham is a genius. It was very compelling.

And then we decided, well, Catherine, your rule is a piece of garbage. So why not watch this Gabby Petito docu-series covering her disappearance and presumed murder at the hands of fiance Brian Lundry? I watched it. It's essentially a trade show of every make and model of red flag to look for in a man. Here are some of the more hair raising details if you fancy watching this on Netflix or even if you don't.

After moving to Florida, where else? Gabby wanted her new BFF Rose to meet this boy she's dating, Brian. But when she did, Rose said he sat away from her and Gabby and he simply watched them. She said it felt like a parent watching us on a play date. It was very, very weird. If your girlfriend, if your BFF tells you that the guy you're dating is weird, believe her. She has no ulterior motives whatsoever.

She's not digmatized by him the way that you are if she doesn't like him Then you need to trust your best friend and leave him immediately and also best friends I know that you were scared to tell your friend. I don't like this guy because What you don't want is for her to ignore you their relationship blossoms and then you're not invited to the wedding and you're cut out and then she's in even more danger because she has no one to turn to so I think

Women, we need to make friendship packs specifically of like a no judgment zone. If you say you hate my boyfriend, I will listen and I won't judge. And if I say I hate your boyfriend, then you just take that with a grain of salt and choose to believe me and take my advice. But if you don't, I will continue to be your friend and I will never say I told you so down the road when it goes south.

Gabby and Brian were pulled over in Utah. It's the sister wife Mormon country for those in the UK. After a concerned citizen called 911 to report a man hitting a young woman, the police department responded and believed Brian was the victim and Gabby as the aggressor because she was acting a lot more, I don't know,

She was agitated. And I suppose they came to this conclusion because she also seemed like groomed to blame herself. She was like, well, I... As a result, police offered Brian a night at the nearby domestic abuse victim hotel. Meanwhile, they told Gabby to find somewhere to park her van and sleep in that for the night. This did not happen in the 1950s. This was this fucking century. Unreal, but also Utah.

Yeah, so we think the safest thing is for a young woman on her own to just sleep in a car by the side of the road. Great. Gabby reached out to her ex-boyfriend, Jackson, twice within a five-day period right before her disappearance. Her ex, Jackson, missed the last call.

Gabby's last sighting was at Whole Foods in Wyoming, Brokeback Mountain Territory for another film reference the Brits might be familiar with, on August 27th, 2021, after she and Brian were seen arguing at the Mary Piglet's Mexican Grill, which is a very unserious name for such a pivotal location, just nine minutes up the road.

Gabby was last seen leaving Whole Foods at approximately 2.11 p.m. Authorities confirmed they were able to track her movements until 8.30 p.m. when her digital fingerprints went cold.

Then, Brian texted back and forth with himself using Gabby's phone. Three days after her death, he also reached out to Gabby's mom, pretending to be Gabby, telling her mom everything was okay. Based on Brian's actions, the FBI quickly deduced that he was trying to put an alibi together for his whereabouts.

Petito's family reported Gabby missing after not hearing from her for several days. She was actually missing for 21 days before her body was found in an unnatural position after what happened around. It appeared to be a fire around her.

Ultimately, the coroner ruled Gabby's death a homicide caused by blunt force trauma and strangulation. Meanwhile, Brian contacted his parents multiple times on August 29th, 2021. Authorities now assume that the call was to tell them something had happened to Gabby after they allegedly wired 25 grand to a lawyer after he asked for help.

Gabby's family relentlessly reached out to the Laundries, Brian's mom, his dad, his sister, and they received no response. Prosecutors believe that Brian's parents may have been involved in helping cover up Gabby's disappearance. They continue to deny any wrongdoing, have never been formally charged, and have referred to the docuseries on Netflix as being, quote, very one-sided. Well, yeah. Well, yeah.

They would maybe be more on your side, Laundries, if your innocent son had been apparently murdered and Gabby was using his phone to text you guys and say that he's okay. If there was loads of evidence that Gabby and her parents covered up his murder. I think only then would Netflix be on your side. Brian's mom, hashtag boy mom, wrote him a letter titled,

burn after reading. It was found when police went through his belongings after he was reported missing. When the police approached the Laundries for questioning, the family told them they didn't want to make any comments. In the process, they found out Brian was home but equally refused to speak to police. Police never got a chance to speak to him before his parents reported him missing on September 17, 2021, and he was considered a missing person for 37 days.

After discovering a car that was registered to the laundries, authorities shut down a state park to do an extensive search. Finally, in October of 2021, remains, along with a backpack and a notebook, were found belonging to Brian. Brian wrote letters to his family telling them he loved them and then told them goodbye. In one letter, he writes, I have killed myself by this creek in hopes that the animals will tear me apart, that it may make some of her family happy. This was an unexpected tragedy.

He continued, I found her breathing, barely, gasping. She was freezing cold. The temperature had dropped. When I pulled Gabby out of the water, she couldn't tell me what hurt. While carrying her, she continually made sounds of pain. Laying next to her, she said between violent shakes, gasping in pain, begging for an end to her pain. So I ended her life. I thought it was merciful. But from the moment I decided to take her pain away, I knew I couldn't go on without her. I rushed home to spend hours

I mean, I do. There's obviously, you know, this never went to trial. Everyone is dead, apart from his family, who I think still have many questions to answer for. But like, I don't know.

I do think it's so interesting that people can lie to an extent that they believe their own lies. I've witnessed this myself, like liars gonna lie. And this just feels...

especially because it doesn't match up with the autopsy report. Like what? She fell in the water. Do you think that if I'm like in a caravan living my dream with my loved one and they fall in the water and they're about to die, that my brain goes to, yeah, I'm just going to put them under their misery and then cover it up and then like hide at my parents' house and then end my life. Like there was a different way, Brian, if your story is the correct one, is you load her in the van and you get to civilization as fast as you can.

I'm just not buying it in any way. And I'm sorry I ever watched this. I broke my own rule, but it did remind me. We look all the time for red flags in romantic partners. There were millions with this guy, but what are the red flags in a man's family to avoid? Because a lot of very dangerous narcissistic men they have found absolutely have dangerous narcissistic mothers. You will always find that their mother is much worse.

And I have been in relationships where like, you know, the mom might seem supportive of me until her son does something really wrong. And then she's pretty quiet. Like, hey, wait a minute. I thought you liked me. I thought, hey, wait, where was the support for me? I guarantee you at least a few of my exes would have helped their sons cover up my demise 1000%. Oh, why did I break my own rule? Rules, Catherine Ryan, are made to be followed.

I got to stick to Real Housewives. I love Last One Laughing on Amazon Prime. Loads of people are saying that this is their favorite show. They have never laughed so much as watching Last One Laughing with Jimmy Carr, Roisin Conaty, and a host of your favorites. I got to stick to comedy. And I love the success of this show because it shows commissioners, audiences, channels. It's like there is still room for so much comedy. We got to stop

investing so much in drama when people are already feeling very scared and sad. They've canceled so many comedy shows because the TV industry is changing. But you got to keep comedy alive because this kind of shit is very bad for my soul.

If you work in quality control at a candy factory, you know strict safety regulations come with the job. It's why you partner with Grainger. Grainger helps you find the high quality and compliant products your business needs to inspect, detect, and help correct issues. And the sweetest part is, everyone gets a product that's as safe to eat as it is delicious. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, clickgrainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done.

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Oh, man. Catherine, can I unfriend someone for being a slag?

One of my friends told me she cheated on her husband last summer. Not just that she slept with one other guy, but several others. She was texting them, telling them she loved them, talking about ways to avoid her husband finding out, etc.

I was really disappointed to hear that for a few reasons. But regardless, I really didn't want to hang out with her anymore. After some thought, I decided she didn't deserve to be cut off from all her friends for her mistakes. This isn't the scarlet letter. I tried to hang out with her and be emotionally supportive because I was certain she was about to go through a divorce.

However, she has made this cheating situation her entire personality. It's all she'll talk about and basically she's proud of herself. Her justification is that her husband didn't sleep with her for over two years. I just think if she was unhappy with him, she could have left him and not done this. Anyway, I've been trying to avoid her for months and for a while I thought she was getting the hint, but recently she ran into my husband and remembered that I exist.

My husband has seen her making out with different men in bars and some other activities that single women participate in and that's fine. I'm just at a different stage of my life and I think birds of a feather flock together. How can I let this woman know that I do not have any interest in being her unpaid therapist anymore? It's hard for me to be friends with someone when I don't agree with the majority of their opinions and decisions, especially when it is all they talk about."

Oh, the swings and roundabouts of this. I went through so many different opinions and emotions reading your letter. At first, I was like, you need to support your friends. Like I support women's rights and wrongs. Some of my well, how many of my friends, not really many of my friends, but like, I cheated on a partner. And it was stressful for me, but I didn't like him anymore. And I sort of was proud of myself, because I think he definitely deserved it.

And I don't think that makes me a bad person. It was a very complicated situation and I was really young and I just wanted to get him away from me. So I was like almost self-harming in the cheating just to get him away. And it worked. So that was a success. But I suppose I know what you mean. Like she's just...

with loads of different men. And I don't know if she talks about the ins and outs of why there's been no intimacy in her marriage. Also, I don't know from you, whether all of you are childhood friends, if you know her husband at all, if you got close to her husband throughout their marriage, if you have any idea what's going on with him, because why have they not been intimate in two years? They really aren't getting along. It

And you know how I suspect men of like habitual wrongdoing. If he hasn't slept with her in two years, it may be that he's sleeping with other people also. And maybe she finds that shameful. Like too often, I think women especially absorb another man's shame as their own. And she might not want to tell you that part. And she's trying to be empowered by being like, look how much I don't care. Look at that. Well, he's not fucking me. So I'm going to, you know, you can't fire me. I quit. Right.

I'm going to make out with all these other men. Like, I'm not saying that's definitely what's going on. But, you know, I think I need more information from you. And maybe, and I mean this in a nice way, as a friend, maybe you're not asking the right questions. Or maybe you have and the answers have all been unsatisfactory. And each time she's like, nope, I just want to make out with other men in bars and fuck around on my husband. Do they have kids? How long have they been married for?

Because it depends on the friendship. Like if this was a casual friend of mine and I just thought that I was at a different place in my life and she was messy and I wasn't invested enough in helping her solve it, then maybe I would walk away too. But I'm thinking of my actual good friends. And I know that one of the women who cheated, she would probably be vilified for doing so if people found out about it. They'd be like, oh, how could she do that? But these people would not know that.

The ins and outs of what he has done in their marriage because she protects him. Even though she cheats on him, she protects him and his own demons and like what led to this wedge in their marriage. So like I would stand by her till the bitter end. I'm thinking about my best friend, Caitlin. She is not cheating on her husband. She doesn't have time. They have two small kids and she loves him. She would have no reason to cheat on him. But I don't know him at all.

And if she did cheat on him for whatever reason, like I wouldn't even need to, I wouldn't even need to hear his side. I would back her up. I would be her alibi. I would find a way to blame it on him. Like I would do whatever it took to maintain my loyalty to Caitlin, whatever it took. So I think it's not about the act or the circumstances. I think it's about the quality of your friendship.

Girl code is if this is like one of your best, best friends, you got to hang in there and get to the bottom of what's going on with her. Because women are tricky and it could be just usually is shrouded in shame. But if she's an acquaintance and you haven't been friends that long, if she's from like the school run or something and you barely know her and you just think she's messy, then you need to tell her like, you know what? I have my own life going on and I wish you the best, but I think you need professional help and I don't have the energy to be your therapist.

And I'm going to have to distance myself from this relationship. I'm sorry. And I low key, I'm scared that you're going to shag my own husband. Oh, no, here's a letter about melanoma. Speaking of best friends, you know, girl, you never know what's going to happen. So Catherine, my best friend of 37 years is currently battling stage four melanoma, which was diagnosed in September 2024. She had a mole removed when she was 24. Oh, God.

That was melanoma stage one. She's had follow-up dermatology appointments every year since then. Last summer, she started experiencing some tremors in her body. She went to hospital emergency and was dismissed twice because she looks young, healthy, and is a woman.

Finally, she suffered a grand mal seizure in her home in late August. She was rushed to hospital and after 16 hours of tests, it revealed she has three brain tumors, two lung tumors, and one in her chest in a lymph node near her diaphragm. All these tumors were melanoma. She has not had any other instances of melanoma moles that doctors have been able to find that might be the cause. So have connected it back to the first and only mole that she had removed 12 years ago.

She has since had three major surgeries to remove the tumors with difficult recoveries. However, this cancer is very aggressive and lesions keep growing back that are now showing up in other major organs, including her stomach. A new brain cancer caused by the melanoma has also developed, which is attacking the lining of her brain. It's just nonstop awful news and an absolute living nightmare.

I've spent the last several months completely bereft. Although she was asked by doctors if she wanted to know how much time she had, she opted not to know because she wants to continue to have some hope. In your situation, I would ask for the possibility of some radiation in the area of the mole removal as well as getting privately, if necessary, a full PET scan of your body to ensure there's nothing lurking. Jesus, it might seem a bit extreme, but if you can afford the scan, it's four grand well spent.

Okay, a PET scan is different to an MRI. Here's a breakdown of their differences. A PET scan focuses on cellular activity and metabolic processes using a radioactive tracer that's injected into the body. Oh, this is probably what they mean with the dye.

How it works. The tracer concentrates in areas of high metabolic activity, which can indicate disease or abnormal function. PET scans are commonly used to detect cancer, heart disease, and some brain disorders. They use a small amount of radiation. MRIs, however, use strong magnetic fields and radio waves to create detailed images of the internal structures and organs of the body. MRI provides a visual representation of the body's anatomy. It's used to diagnose a wide range of conditions, including injuries, infections, tumors, and do not use radiation.

Hmm. So a combination makes more accurate diagnosis. Yeah, I mean, I think this sounds like what I have been advised to do, just to be sure. But like, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend. Honestly, so sorry. And I would wonder if she does have another primary melanoma elsewhere, because it would be very rare that they would remove a stage one melanoma. And, and then like that spread somehow, even though the borders would have come back

clear, like my doctor was telling me sometimes they find melanoma in your eyes. And the only way I mean, maybe they've exhausted all this testing. And at this point, obviously, it's irrelevant. But I wonder if there was another melanoma somewhere missed. But like, this is what I'm trying to get at with melanoma is so many people just think skin cancer is not a problem. And most skin cancer is not as aggressive as melanoma is.

I'm so sorry for what your friend is going through. And maybe some of these drugs that I mentioned, because they attack the melanoma cells that cannot be surgically removed. I mean, is that still under like some FDA study? Or is it widely available? I don't know. But I just really hope that your friend has a successful outcome and find some miracle treatment that she needs. I'm so sorry.

Catherine, my boyfriend hates you. He says I shouldn't listen to anything you say. He is, how do I put it, old school despite being 35. And we have opposite views about protected characteristics. He finds you too woke and I can't listen to your podcast when he's around because he says I need to turn it off because you and the Kardashians are ruining how I view myself in the world. I know not everyone will agree with you, but this should have been a red flag to show how different our views and values are as a couple.

Cut to three weeks ago. On the Monday, we were picking out a range cooker for our new build country house. And on Thursday, he broke up with me because we are too different. I was and am still hurt. But as previously stated, I should have realized this myself before now, and been brave enough to call it quits myself.

Easier said than done after almost four years. So here I am at your show tomorrow in Aberdeen, 38 and single with the message for women that negative feelings towards Catherine Ryan are most definitely a red flag. And you shouldn't stick around thinking this behavior will change. It won't. Don't be too hard on yourself because I have also dated many men who hate Catherine Ryan. And I can't tell you how awkward that has been. They think her views are

are very dangerous. And you know what, I would say that's a red flag, because I'm sorry that this happened to you, because even a bastard breaking up with you really hurts your feelings. But like, we're straddling this really interesting point in time when like, we still are attracted to traditional men, some of us, like this idea of like a masculine kind of

you know, conservative man, maybe who might have been in many ways like our dads, you know, and that is just the like attachment trauma that we will have from being raised when we were raised. Like we are 80s and 90s babies. We were raised when tabloids were tearing women apart and talking about their weight and literally putting actresses on scales and just shaming them in a number of ways. Like it is tough.

to be a 40 year old feminist, because it is still new to us. And we will have the hangovers of fancying these really reductive, old fashioned men. And especially because a lot of the younger ones now are being influenced by Andrew Tate, etc.,

And they have these beliefs like, oh, men need to be this way. And if you challenge them on that, it really puts their whole sense of worth into like a spiral. They go, well, Catherine Ryan kind of acts like the man. So then like, I don't want my girlfriend thinking that she can be empowered and be the man. And that like my masculine amazing qualities that I'm just clinging on to are dangerous. There are loads of men who come to my shows and

Loads of men who are my friends, loads of men who understand that I am in no way trying to take their power away. And you should only in future date a man who recognizes that you can't take feminism too far. You can't take equality too far. It's an oxymoron. And that by empowering women, it really does benefit men.

They don't have to carry all the financial burden. They don't have to be like strong and perfect and alpha and they can talk about their feelings and they can spend time with their children and they can have a day off and have a glass of wine because they've got a partner instead of like a mini mom that they also want to fuck and control. God, I'm sorry that you lost your boyfriend, but you know, just watch that Gabby Petito series.

And you will feel better about distancing yourself from these red flags. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Telling Everybody Everything. As ever, please advocate for yourself in all areas of your life. Your dreams, your wishes, your health, your relationships. You can come see me on tour until the end of June. I'm still all over the UK. Next week, I'm finishing up in Ireland now. And then next week, I'm in Llandno, something like that.

Manchester, Stockton, and then kind of all around. I'm in Canada in May. I'm at the Palladium in April. If you happen to be visiting London, it's a great night out. And I'm at the Palladium again in May. So I hope to see you there. And I hope that you look after each other. I'll see you soon. Bye.

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