Loose Women star Brenda Edwards has opened up about her health battle which she dubs as one of the “worst times” of her life.
Brenda, 55, spoke exclusively to the Daily Star as she has joined forces with GenesisCare – the UK’s leading specialist cancer care provider – to launch a campaign to drive awareness of the symptoms of secondary breast cancer.
The TV star, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, said: “I just didn’t think breast cancer would be affecting me full stop, and so I hadn’t been doing all the tests to check properly. I didn’t have any symptoms of illness at all and I didn’t feel ill in my body.
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“But I found a pea-sized little lump on my right breast that felt like it was hard, like a frozen pea. So, I went to see the doctor, and they said I had stage three breast cancer.
(Image: Getty Images for Jamal Edwards S)
“I was terrified, it was one of the worst times of my life because that’s just not what I was expecting to hear at all. I wasn’t prepared for it. But after I got the diagnosis, I went into positive mental attitude mode and did as much research as I could.
“Not everybody will want to face it in the same way that I did. I played lots of music and danced around my living room on the day I was having my chemotherapy, and when I went there, I had music in my ears while I was having the treatment. That was just the way that I wanted to deal with it.
(Image: Fearless PR)
“But I’m really glad that I’m nine years free of cancer now and here to be able to help spread positive messages for other cancer survivors and for other people going through cancer and at the different stages that they are.”
She added: “The main message to get across, is, no matter how small or how insignificant you think something might be, you know your body, you know if something isn’t right, so get it checked out as quickly as possible.”
(Image: Fearless PR)
The GenesisCare Second Chance campaign aims to drive better awareness of the disease and the importance of focusing on symptoms beyond the breast. Secondary – or metastatic – breast cancer is when breast cancer cells spread beyond the breast, through the lymphatic or blood system, to other parts of the body including the brain, bones, skin, liver or lung.
Sadly, between 10% and 40% of UK patients diagnosed with primary breast cancer go on to develop secondary breast cancer, depending on the specific type of primary breast cancer they had.
(Image: Fearless PR)
Brenda will also be featured in the powerful new Second Chance photography exhibition which includes a series of striking, anatomical close-up images of her chest, stomach, back, head and skin. Each image aims to highlight a key area of the body where secondary breast cancer is most likely to strike and the most common symptoms to look out for.
Brenda Edwards is fronting the new GenesisCare Second Chance campaign which aims to raise awareness of where in the body secondary cancer is most likely to strike and the symptoms to look out for. Visit https://www.genesiscare.com/uk/second-chance for more information.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
