Twelve to eighteen months. That is the usual life expectancy after a glioblastoma diagnosis, and Theo Burrell beat it by more than two years. The Antiques Roadshow ceramics expert died on Wednesday at 39, four years after doctors found the tumour.
Her Instagram account carried the announcement. She “died peacefully on Wednesday surrounded by her family,” a statement said, and the family wrote that neither Burrell nor her medical team had expected the end to come so quickly.
Four years she was not supposed to have
Burrell was diagnosed in June 2022, at 35, after five or six months of headaches, sickness, vision problems and pressure in her head. She told the BBC it was only when she went to A&E at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh that she got an answer. “I had absolutely no idea it was coming, it was a huge shock,” she said. Treatment included life-extending surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
She had spoken before about “dark thoughts” and a fear that she “wouldn’t see my son’s second birthday.” In a recent Instagram post she wrote: “But I’m lucky enough to say I did! And no-one can take that away from me.” Her family said she also lived to see her son start school and to marry her husband, Alex, earlier this year, events they had never expected her to reach.
The disease is incurable, and treatment has not moved forward in two decades. About 3,200 people in the UK are diagnosed with it each year, and around 160 of them live five years or more.
Day job and campaign
Burrell was a ceramics and glass specialist at the Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull. She joined the BBC programme in 2018 as one of the experts who appraise objects brought in by the public. She came from East Lothian.
In 2023 she became a patron of Brain Tumour Research, and her campaigning pressed for government funding, faster diagnosis and more clinical trials. Dan Knowles, the charity’s chief executive, said she “knew from the outset her cancer was terminal but she was absolutely determined to make a difference for others.”
The family’s statement closed on what she wanted from her story: “I think what she would want most of all is for other people to find hope in her story.”
Sources
- Antiques Roadshow expert Theo Burrell dies aged 39
- Antiques Roadshow Expert Theo Burrell Dies at 39 After Years of Cancer Battle
