Amy Dowden has revealed she had a gut feeling about her cancer diagnosis while on her Maldives honeymoon but did not want to tell her husband Ben Jones.
The Strictly Come Dancing pro, 33, told Loose Women on Friday she did not tell her partner over fears he would not want to go on the trip.
Amy said she found a lump in her right breast in April, a day before she and her husband flew out for a belated honeymoon after their wedding last July.
The ballroom dancer was first diagnosed with aggressive stage three breast cancer in May.
Amy said after finding it, she knew she had cancer because her mother was also diagnosed with the disease in her fifties after a mammogram scan.
Stunning: Amy Dowden, 33, has revealed she had a gut feeling about her cancer diagnosis while on her Maldives honeymoon but did not want to tell her husband Ben Jones
Newly weds: The Strictly Come Dancing pro told Loose Women on Friday she did not tell her partner over fears he would not want to go on the trip
Brave: Amy said she found a lump in her right breast in April, a day before she and her husband flew out for a belated honeymoon after their wedding last July
Speaking to the panel – Jane Moore, Denise Welch, Judi Love and Nadia Sawalha – Amy said: ‘I knew. My mum had breast cancer but hers was picked up in a mammogram and she didn’t feel it, it was picked up on her first mammogram.
‘I didn’t tell my husband Ben. I went on the honeymoon and every day you’re putting sun tan lotion on and I could feel it. I just had this gut feeling.’
Explaining why she didn’t want to tell him initially, Amy said, ‘Well, he wouldn’t have gone on the honeymoon! And I really wanted this honeymoon, for a break… What could we have done?’
Detailing what happened when they returned, Amy shared, ‘I had an ultrasound and I’d already Googled what it looks like and I could see, and I could just tell.
‘All of a sudden there’s a breast care nurse with me and I rang my sister and I was in floods of tears and she was saying ‘We don’t know’ and I said, ‘Don’t tell Ben, I don’t want to panic Ben’.’
When receiving her diagnosis, the star explained that after being told she had cancer, the first question she was asked was whether she had any plans for children.
The star and her new husband had not yet had that conversation but it was always on the cards for her.
She said: ‘I could tell from the breast care nurses, who are just phenomenal.
Gorgeous: Amy said after finding it, she knew she had cancer because her mother was also diagnosed with the disease in her 50s after a mammogram scan
Speaking to the panel – Jane Moore, Denise Welch, Judi Love and Nadia Sawalha – Amy said: ‘I knew. My mum had breast cancer but hers was picked up in a mammogram’
Tearful: Amy has used her love for Strictly to help motivate her to keep strong and look ahead to the future
Amy said: ‘I didn’t tell my husband Ben. I went on the honeymoon and every day you’re putting sun tan lotion on and I could feel it. I just had this gut feeling’
Interview: Detailing what happened when they returned, Amy shared, ‘I had an ultrasound and I’d already Googled what it looks like and I could see, and I could just tell’
‘They are handpicked, they’re amazing and then I could tell from the surgeon’s face and then he said to me you’ve got breast cancer and then in the next sentence, ‘What’s your plans for children?’, and for me that was just…
‘In my head I’m thinking, ‘What’s Ben thinking?’ My twin sister knows that children have always been on the cards for me.
‘So I was gonna have a lumpectomy, radiotherapy and hormone treatment and then after an MRI scan, that changed to mastectomy, into hopefully time for egg retrieval, to chemotherapy.’
Sharing why she was reluctant to have chemotherapy initially, Amy shared, ‘I knew that was it for Strictly that season and I’ve just watched my beautiful friend, my pink sister Jenny, go through cancer and she had to have chemotherapy and we did the ring-the-bell party we arranged for her and I’ve seen what it put her through.
‘I was just really scared and I didn’t want to lose my hair and I didn’t want to miss out on Strictly.’
Amy has used her love for Strictly to help motivate her to keep strong and look ahead to the future.
She said: ‘I keep saying to myself, ‘This too shall pass’ and unfortunately, people are getting diagnosed every day with breast cancer – I just hope that I can give them some encouragement, that they can see that I got through it and I got back on the dancefloor and that there is light at the end of the tunnel.’