This has been the toughest year of my life, says Amy Dowden

Amy Dowden has said undergoing treatment for breast cancer has resulted in the “toughest year” of her life.

The Strictly Come Dancing star, 33, appeared on the Stand Up To Cancer live show at the Francis Crick Institute to celebrate a decade of the appeal for Cancer Research UK.

Styling a shaved head with a blue blazer and matching trousers, Dowden told presenter Davina McCall she has her last chemotherapy session on Thursday and is looking forward to being able to “ring that chemo bell”.

“It has been the toughest year of my life but I’m just really hoping with the surgery that I’ve already had and the chemo that I’ve done enough,” she said.

“I’ve had sepsis, blood clots, I’ve had to have hormone treatment then been put into menopause.

“When I sat in that room and the doctors said, ‘Amy, yes you have cancer’, that was one stab, and then, ‘What’s your fertility plans?’, because I’ve got an oestrogen-fed cancer and they need to shut my ovaries down, basically, and my husband is next to me and we’ve only been married a couple of months.

“It’s just heart-breaking and that is something I never knew and the impact emotionally, it has just been so tough.”

Dowden announced in June that she had undergone a mastectomy after discovering she had stage three breast cancer.

She said: “You don’t get mammograms in the UK until you’re in your 50s, I would never have thought at 32 I was going to get diagnosed with breast cancer.

“If I wasn’t checking myself I would never have found it. If you’re not checking yourself, who is? Get to know your own chest.”

Dowden also said the NHS had been “incredible” during her breast cancer treatment.