‘I have 15 years to live – here’s what I’ve learnt about happiness’-Kitty Chrisp-Entertainment – Metro

Abi Feltham has been diagnosed with a brain tumour, and it’s taught her some important lessons about life (Picture: Abi Feltham/Supplied)

Abi Feltham was told last week she has 15 years to live – and she’s never been happier.

You might know Abi, 36, from Instagram, where she has garnered 132,000 followers by sharing her journey with alcohol and drug addiction, giving her blunt, inspiring and endlessly funny life lessons her followers have grown to love her for.

When she was 23, Abi moved to Thailand. Here she sank into the darkest place of her life. She would drink every morning, afternoon and evening. Eventually she turned to drugs.

‘I was just completely suicidal and depressed. I started smoking crack because the alcohol stopped working. I didn’t care if I lived or died, I didn’t care about myself anymore. I lost the will to live,’ she tells Metro.co.uk.

Abi’s father took his own life, and years later she tried to do the same. A psych ward didn’t help Abi but in 2020, 10 years after she first moved abroad, being wretched away from her ‘weird depression and addiction bubble’ when the pandemic hit, did.

Back in her childhood home, sitting on her old bed surrounded by wine bottles Abi realised something must change.

Abi went sober three years ago after becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol (Picture: Abi Feltham/Supplied)

She was severely depressed and tried to take her own life (Picture: Abi Feltham/Supplied)

Telling her mum she was ill, Abi went cold turkey from alcohol – which is definitely not advisable, and actually very dangerous – and eventually as she recovered began posting about her journey to sobriety on social media.

But while Abi thought struggles with depression and substance abuse were her main fights in life, the last few weeks have proved her wrong.

‘It’s been a wild ride,’ chuckles Abi, who is remarkably optimistic and oozes calm, even while talking about a stage three brain tumour she only found out about last month.

Abi first noticed something was wrong in October when she was waking up in the mornings and throwing up. She also suffered from brain fog, headaches, and low mood. Coincidentally, Abi was giving up caffeine at the time, so put it down to withdrawals.

‘I’m an addict, I can’t do anything,’ she laughs.

At the beginning of this year, Abi’s symptoms began to improve, before they came back with a vengeance in February, and she went to the doctors where she was diagnosed with sinusitis. As a precaution, she was told to go to the optician to make sure it was nothing more sinister.

‘I didn’t go because I’m lazy,’ Abi says. But then one day when she was out on a walk with her partner, her vision went. ‘I just could see, but everything was blurry,’ she remembers.

Abi is three years sober in this picture. She found a new hobby in posting about her journey online (Picture: Abi Feltham/Supplied)

But just a few weeks ago she was diagnosed with cancer and given 15 years to live (Picture: Abi Feltham/Supplied)

The optician told her to go to A&E at an eye hospital, who then referred her straight away to have an MRI and CT scan.

Having gone to the opticians on the Monday, just a few days later on Thursday Abi was having a craniotomy.

‘They did it,’ Abi remembers with a bewildered laugh. ‘They opened up my skull and they took what was causing my symptoms, which was actually a cyst.’

Abi now calls her doctor Dr Butterfingers – not to his face, obviously – because he dropped a fragment of her skull during the first surgery.

In true Abi fashion, this didn’t seem to phase her, as she hoots: ‘He had a really good sense of humour. When I woke up he was like, “I have to tell you something…”

‘Then he said, “I’m so sorry but we dropped your skull on the floor. Five second rule, we’ve put it back in and I’m just going to give you some antibiotics.”‘

Dr Butterfingers aside, had the cyst not been there, Abi might still be unaware of the two pence coin-sized tumour next to it. After the cyst was drained, Abi’s symptoms disappeared and her sight came back.

But as she was recovering at home, Abi was told she had to go for another round of brain surgery so Dr Butterfingers could remove the cancerous tumour, which turned out to be more aggressive than initially thought.

Aby has a very dark sense of humour, and nicknamed her surgeon Dr Butterfingers after he dropped a part of her skull (Picture: Abi Feltham/Supplied)

‘I was a little bit devastated,’ Abi admits. ‘I was at home and I was starting to feel better and stronger. I thought maybe, just maybe, it won’t be malignant. And maybe I can just move on now. But it wasn’t meant to be.’

So off Abi went back to the surgery table, where Dr Butterfingers told her – with all seriousness – he was going to try his hardest not to paralyse her left side.

After the surgery, Abi was relieved to discover her left arm and leg move just fine. Having been told she would have to stay in hospital for a number of weeks, Abi – who refers to herself as a ‘medical marvel’ – was discharged two days later.

‘In my head, I was like, “He doesn’t know I squat 70 kilograms,”‘ Abi said, chuffed with her speedy recovery.

Then came the big news, just last week.

‘I got it into my head that maybe I’ve got five years left or something. And then I was thinking five years, that’s okay. I can enjoy five years,’ Abi explains.

‘We found out that the tumour is a grade three oligodendroglioma and the doctor said, “You’re going to get treatment, so you have many, many years left.

‘And I was like, “Okay, how many is many years, be more specific?”

‘He said, “The data is really old and research isn’t up to date, and like, you’re unique. Everyone’s different, and people react differently to treatment and stuff.

‘”But if I was going to make an estimate, I would say about 15 years.”‘

‘I was like, okay, that’s fantastic news. Fantastic. I can do heaps of stuff. I’ve got so much life to live and enjoy,’ she says.

‘I mean, I’m not going to lie, I had some angry moments. I’ve honoured my rage and let myself feel angry. I think it’s important, just to process.’

Having to face up to her own mortality has made Abi happier (Picture: Abi Feltham/Supplied)

After chemotherapy, next year Abi wants to write a part memoir, part self-help book, which will no doubt help thousands of people suffering with addiction and depression. Cancer has certainly taught Abi a thing or two about life.

Last year Abi experienced a particularly severe bout of depression, partly because of life changes but also because she has borderline personality disorder, which makes her prone to such episodes.

‘Rather than like going into the office every day, I was just at home crying,’ she remembers.

‘When I was going through that I was praying for some sort of psychic change, praying for something to make me love life again, and make me more optimistic and make me grateful.

‘I was like, I need to make a change. Something needs to happen for me to start appreciating life again. And then here we are,’ she says.

‘I mean, I don’t think cancer is the answer to my prayers of having the mindset change that I so desperately wanted.

‘But it has had that effect on me. It has made me grateful, positive, optimistic, all the things that I wanted to be, but I couldn’t achieve.’

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