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Strictly Come Dancing professional Amy Dowden has said she no longer feels “emotionally attached” to her body following a second mastectomy.
The Welsh dancer was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago and underwent chemotherapy and a mastectomy.
In November she revealed she would have another mastectomy and said in an Instagram post that she had not received a new cancer diagnosis and could “expect a straightforward recovery”.
Dowden appeared on Channel 4’s Stand Up To Cancer on Friday and revealed she has been “put into menopause because of my hormone-fed cancer”.
“I don’t know if I’ll have the honour of being able to become a mum, which I desperately want to be able to,” she said.
Reflecting on her last appearance on the Channel 4 show in 2023 with a shaved head amid her treatment for the disease, she said: “I didn’t even recognise myself, actually, but I’m so proud of how far I’ve come.
“At the time I was going through the hardest journey of my life. A cancer diagnosis, it changes you forever.”
The 35-year old, who is from Caerphilly, revealed she was still receiving monthly injections on an oncology unit and underwent another mastectomy five weeks ago.
“So I’m no longer emotionally attached to my body, but I am so proud of how far it’s come, and I’m so grateful for another shot at life.”
She said a cancer diagnosis “changes you forever”.
“I’m no longer the person I was, and that’s not by choice.”
She missed out on a celebrity partner on Strictly in 2023 amid her treatment but returned to the BBC One dancing show, which reaches the semi-finals on Saturday.
This series she was paired with Thomas Skinner, an Apprentice star and social media personality, and they became the first couple voted off in October.
“I never thought I was going to get back on the dancefloor,” she said.
“I hated the way I looked. I had no energy and I was scared. I was petrified, you know, I used to cry myself to sleep. My husband would hear me crying in the shower.
“I just longed for that old Amy back and I know I’m never, ever going to get her back.”
