Funny lady Julia Morris has gotten serious as she opened up about the devastating experience when she had a miscarriage mid-flight, and the lighter side of her hubby Dan Thomas’s shock cancer diagnosis.
Julia, 46, revealed how she was returning to her home (which was in London at the time) from a comedy festival in South Africa and was in the bathroom when she realised what was happening.
Although Julia reiterated that “nothing about this is funny,” there was a bittersweet moment when her travel companion did not at first realise what was happening and cracked a joke.
“I was sitting next to a comic friend of mine and I came back from the bathroom and he said ‘How big is the s*** you were doing to be in the bathroom that long?’ And, talk about making someone feel awkward, I said ‘I think I’m miscarrying’. And he was like ‘Oh my God’ because he had kids.”
Stuck mid-air, without her husband Dan Thomas, and hours until they landed, there was nothing that she could do: “I couldn’t call Dan, I couldn’t do anything about it”.
The House Husbands star was speaking in a video interview with website showandtell.com.au, although she has also previously detailed the tragic story in her 2009 memoir, Don’t You Know Who I Used To Be.
Julia Morris: “Wow, look at me now!”
Instead of letting the shock and grief of the traumatic miscarriage get to her though, Julia powered on through – flying to Canada three days later for the Montreal Just for Laughs Comedy Festival.
“I’m a stream train like that. I’m not gonna let that, stop me from doing the next … I’m not gonna sit at home and wallow in my self-pity I’m gonna sort it out. That’s just how I operate,” she said.
“I think I grieved later. I think to some extent I haven’t really even [grieved] about Dan having breast cancer that much,” she continued, referring to her husband Dan’s shock diagnosis two years ago.
Julia also spoke about how doctors first stumbled across a lump in Dan’s breast.
“He had a tummy hernia and was having that fixed and the surgeon said I’m going to whip that out at the same time.”
Revealing the lighter side to when Dan first received the cancer diagnosis, Julia talked about how she had been in to get Botox at the same time and they were joking around about that. Dan was scheduled to hear back about the biopsy of the lump but they weren’t expecting to hear anything bad and were busy joking around when the doctor then had to hit them with the unexpected bad news.
After Dan got the diagnosis, Julia again talked about how there was no time to wallow- it was only a couple of days before Christmas and Dan had to have the mastectomy the next day. Julia said they were too preoccupied organising the kids, Christmas etc. and everything to really stop and think about the cancer.
When they got back to the car, Julia said Dan turned to her and said: “Baby you were amazing in there… you were so strong and so together – and it really helped me”
Not one for false heroism, Julia quickly burst that bubble by proclaiming: “I can’t move my face! I’ve had Botox!”
