Denise hit with yet more upsetting news in EastEnders as her future hangs in the balance
Denise Fox (Diane Parish) has faced her battle with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) with the utmost bravery, but a new speed bump on the road to recovery rears it’s ugly head in EastEnders next week.
After suffering with severe fatigue and in the immediate aftermath of Sam Mitchell’s (Kim Medcalf) valiant battle with her own cancer, Denise went to the GP to get checked out and discovered she had AML.
Though she initially resisted heading to the hospital for the immediate treatment the doctor said she needed in favour of supporting her daughter, Chelsea (Zaraah Abrahams), whose son Jordan (Jahsaiah Williams) had been knocked down in a nasty car accident.
Eventually admitting to her family that she was incredibly unwell, she headed to the hospital to begin treatment.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t all been plain sailing since then: upon her completion of the treatment, Denise learned that a friend she’d made on the ward had died, she also discovered that Chelsea had allowed Jordan’s great-grandma Sheila Atkins (Sheila Ruskin) – grandmother of his serial killer dad Gray Atkins’ (Toby-Alexander Smith) – into his life and, most crushingly, that her own treatment hadn’t yielded the results her doctors were hoping for.
This week, Denise finds herself swept into the sheer chaos created by a still-unhinged Gray, after Chelsea discovered the truth behind Sheila’s emergence.
Chelsea banned her from any further contact with Jordan, driving her to accelerate a kidnapping plan after snatching his passport.
With Sheila working on snatching Jordan, Gray has manipulated a situation from behind bars, leading Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) to send Chelsea a visiting order, that quickly spirals out of control.
Next week sees further pain for Denise, when she attempts to celebrate her sister, Kim Fox’s (Tameka Empson) upcoming nuptials to Howie Danes (Delroy Atkinson) in the hospital, though it quickly becomes clear that she isn’t physically well enough to handle it.
Later in the week, she and husband, Jack Branning (Scott Maslen), are further rocked when they learn that, yet again, the chemo Denise is going through isn’t working and there’s only one option left: a stem cell transplant.
With most of her family already having been ruled out as suitable donors, it seems Kim’s upcoming discovery that Denise has a half brother, Darnell Larson Jr (Christopher Colquhoun). While Darnell could prove to be her only hope, will he be willing to donate to a perfect stranger when a heart warming reunion turns into a desperate situation?
