Amy Dowden talks about rebuilding her health after breast cancer
Strictly Come Dancing pro Amy Dowden emotionally admitted that she is “never going to be the same again” after undergoing a mastectomy, multiple gruelling rounds of chemotherapy and damage to her mental health.
In an Instagram video addressed to her 602,000 followers, she lamented: “I’m never going to be the same Amy ever again, in terms of me mentally and even physically, because I’ve had a mastectomy.”
However, her personal trainer Ami has just begun working with her on her mission to become “the best Amy I can possibly be” as she looks towards the prospect of restarting her dancing career.
“This morning I started what I’m going to call my rehab and I feel so good for it,” she told fans, as she sat in front of the camera, covering her head with a hair wrap.
“Obviously I’m nowhere near to where I was before [because] my body has gone through so much,” she agonised, listing sepsis, blood clots and egg retrieval among the complications cancer treatment has caused her.
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Amy recently revealed she’d had to be put into “menopause” to prevent her cancer feeding off her oestrogen supply, while her chemo also posed a risk to her fertility, but doctors saved her eggs before beginning her treatment program.
The 34-year-old lamented that her muscles “are not what they used to be”, but insisted that getting back into the gym and “doing gentle exercises” to help her through the process.
Amy continued that she’s had a massive upheaval in her body weight, after going from a constantly active and fit lifestyle to a sedentary one and being dosed up with cancer drugs.
“I’ve gained quite a bit of weight, due to steroids. I’m normally dancing all day every day and I haven’t been able to since May,” she explained, revealing that she was warned off exercise altogether for six weeks following her mastectomy.
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“I’ve gone up two dress sizes but I’ve told myself all the way through all that matters is getting myself well,” she declared.
That isn’t all that’s been getting Amy down about her appearance, either.
“I’m not gonna lie, I hate looking at myself in the mirror at the moment and I know so many of us who’ve been on this journey too feel the same,” she grimaced.
“I’ve lost all my hair, I’ve lost so many eyelashes,” Amy continued, adding that she’d had her brows microbladed before starting the chemo.
Amy is due to finish chemo completely on Thursday, although she will still have to return to the ward once a month for the next five years for an injection which she believes will maintain her cancer-free status.
“People think that when you ring that bell, it’s over – oh no, it’s only just begun!” she assured her viewers.
However, she has vowed to return to the career she loves so much, previously declaring that while cancer might be able to take her breast, it cannot stop her dancing.
On Instagram, she spoke of her “determination to come back stronger” after her first day back in the gym.
“[I’m] trying to get myself as fit as I possibly can… to become the strongest, healthiest Amy that there is,” she concluded.
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