Alistair Petrie, known for his roles in Sex Education and The Night Manager, has spoken about the moment he feared he might lose his 23-year-old son, Cal, who was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive brain cancer. Cal was diagnosed with pineoblastoma after suffering headaches during a family holiday.
The pair appeared on Tuesday's episode of This Morning with Cal's surgeon, Arthur Dalton, to share his story with presenters Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley. Cal underwent major surgery lasting 13 hours to extract 98% of the tumour, followed by intensive treatment.
Cal's Diagnosis and Surgery
Cal recalled the moment he realised something was seriously wrong after suffering a week-long headache. He said: "We were on holiday in Kenya and I did a very benign dive in the pool, and sort of came up and touched my head, and just assumed that it was dehydration or just a little impact sort of headache. I tried to drink loads of water and took medication."
Cal added: "That headache would last for about seven days, and that was sort of the time when we went, 'Right, this isn't quite normal, so let's go to the hospital' after being pushed quite a lot by my family and girlfriend." At the hospital, medical staff told Cal it was probably a migraine, but a CT scan detected an accumulation of fluid, necessitating an operation. During the procedure, surgeons took a biopsy and initially believed the tumour to be benign before confirming it was malignant, with a further operation scheduled three days later.
Emotional Plea Before Surgery
Alistair recounted the harrowing moment Cal was taken into surgery as he feared for his son's life. He said: "The most emotional part for my wife, and I was when Cal had been prepped and spoken to by the anaesthetist and was being wheeled into the lift to go down into surgery.
"I put my hands on Arthur's shoulder, looked him square in the eyes, and said, 'Please, just bring him back'. And Arthur shook my hand and with a very faint smile, just said, 'I'm looking forward to it'.
"Arthur could be the only one to speak of what that really meant, but I took it as this was a man with an enormous amount of empathy and an astonishingly skilled set. As those lift doors closed, Lucy and I fell to the floor. Our knees literally buckled, that was our emotional reaction."
Treatment and Recovery
After the operation, which successfully removed 98% of the tumour, Cal subsequently underwent six weeks of proton beam therapy — a procedure whereby high-energy protons are accurately directed at a tumour — alongside chemotherapy. This Morning airs weekdays at 10am on ITV and ITVX.
