23 August 2024, 10:35
Picture:
Alamy
Strictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden has revealed her return to the show was thrown into jeopardy when she recently had another cancer scare.
After being diagnosed with an ‘aggressive’ for of breast cancer in May 2023, she underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy and fertility treatment.
She was told in February this year that she had ‘no evidence of disease’.
But in a new documentary Strictly Amy: Cancer and Me, she is awaiting news on whether she will be well enough to return to the show after a year off – when she receives worrying news after a routine MRI scan.
Doctors tell her they have detected “a few little dots” in the scan that suggest calcification and a “change occurring in the breast”. Her doctor warned her it could be a sign of breast cancer returning.
She undergoes a biopsy and tells the documentary cameras: “I’m feeling really anxious and worried because it obviously brought back memories of everything I went through a year ago.”
“But I’ve just gotta try and remain positive and not take myself to those worrying places.”
However the biopsy shows the ‘dots’ are benign changes and there was no cancer detected.
“I’m so relieved. It feels like I’m set free,” she said.
Dowden said: “In the past year, I’ve had a mastectomy, fertility treatment, chemotherapy, sepsis, blood clots, a broken foot and finally it’s time for me to get back on that dancefloor.”
Strictly has been mired in controversy in recent months with two of the show’s professional dancers – Giovanni Pernice and Graziano Di Prima – leaving amid allegations about their behaviour.
Pernice has denied any wrongdoing – and Di Prima’s spokesman confirmed the star kicked celebrity partner Zara McDermott once during rehearsals last year.