Countryfile’s Julia Bradbury has revealed she has been diagnosed with breast cancer and faces a mastectomy next month.
The 51-year-old said, “it changes your world forever in an instant” and that no one can “prepare” you for those words.
Last week, the TV star walked on the red carpet for the National Television Awards. She wore a silver off the shoulder jumpsuit that was cut across her chest.
Julia said the outfit was a “kind of goodbye to the body I’ve been living all these years”.
She said: “We all live in hope of a peaceful end in our beds, having had children and grandchildren, or having fulfilled whatever mission in life we choose. But the word cancer is so ugly it makes you think of the most unimaginably horrible death. That’s the reality of it.”
(Image: WireImage)
Julia added: “I have to hope I have caught mine early enough. A mastectomy is a shattering thing to go through but it means that I am going to live and be here for my children.”
She is set to undergo a mastectomy with her left breast and its six-centimetre tumour removed in early October.
Surgeons will also remove tissue from the lymph nodes to establish whether or not the disease has spread, writes MailOnline.
(Image: Getty Images)
The star hopes by speaking candidly about what is happening she may save a stranger’s life.
She hopes her bravery will inspire other women to get tested, and that they can be encouraged by her words of encouragement.
After finding a lump in her breast last year, she underwent a mammogram.
(Image: Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror)
Before the appointment, she went on holiday with partner Gerard and their three children, son Zeph, 10, and twin daughters Zena and Zanthe, six, in August.
However, the doctor discovered a dark shadow on her ultrasound that he was not happy with and sent her for biopsies.
Julia waited for her results over the weekend, and was finally notified by her doctor via phone.
She concentrates on the “positives”, which is that doctors believe that the cancer cells have been contained to her milk ducts. The breast tissue has not been affected by the disease. This means that she may not need chemotherapy.
For more information, you can visit cancer.org or National Breast Cancer here.
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