Yahoo News Strictly star Amy Dowden's explains one thing she has changed following her cancer battle
Strictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden says she never forgets to apply sun protection cream following her battle with cancer.
The professional ballroom and Latin American dancer was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in May last year. The 33-year-old found a lump in her breast the day before going to the Maldives on her honeymoon with her husband Ben Jones.
After a mastectomy and chemotherapy, tests showed the Welsh dancer now has "no evidence of disease". She took a break from competing in the BBC dance contest last year but will re-join the cast of professional dancers for the 2024 series.
This weekend, Amy took to social media to share pictures from her holiday with Ben, who is also a professional dancer. She was keen to let fans know that she now never forgets to apply sun protection cream following her battle with cancer.
She posted a snap of a tube of sun cream and the caption: "Always now! How cancer has changed me."
In another picture, the couple were pictured in the swimming pool and another was taken of the pair with the sunset in the background. She captioned those pictures: "It's vacay mode. Unconditional. Why not."
Amy will return to Strictly Come Dancing next month, as training for dancers begins in July.
It will be the first time first time back since being diagnosed with cancer, and undergoing chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. Her treatment meant she couldn't take part in last year's series.
Earlier this month, Amy, from from Caerphilly, Wales, became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). She was named in the King’s Birthday Honours for her services to fundraising and raising awareness of Crohn’s disease.
Amy, who was diagnosed with the condition when she was a child, said: "I will always continue campaigning to raise awareness and fund raising for research into this terrible chronic illness.”
She is an advocate and ambassador for charity Crohn’s & Colitis UK and has been outspoken about her own struggle with the inflammatory bowel disease, first speaking about it in 2019.
Crohn’s is described by the NHS as a lifelong condition in which parts of the digestive system become inflamed, and people can experience intense abdominal pain, severe vomiting, exhaustion and bloody diarrhoea, among other symptoms.
She fronted the BBC programme Strictly Amy: Crohn’s And Me, in which she spoke about the condition and met others with Crohn’s to hear about their experiences.
Amy suffered a flare-up of the condition in November 2021, shortly after the filming of Strictly, when she briefly moved in with her celebrity partner, McFly star Tom Fletcher, and his wife Giovanna, while her partner was away.
In January 2022 she was admitted to hospital in Manchester after Crohn’s developed suddenly while on the Strictly live tour.
Amy said she did not disclose she had it when she joined Strictly, because she "didn’t want to be known as 'Amy with Crohn's'. "
