Strictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden gives fans breast cancer surgery update

Strictly Come Dancing professional Amy Dowden has given fans an update on her recent breast cancer surgery.

The 32-year-old Welsh dancer said in an Instagram story on Thursday that her surgery “went well” and gave a “big thank you” to her surgeons and nurses who had been “utterly amazing”.

Dowden added: “(I’m) very sore but focusing on the positives, they said the surgery went well! Thanks for all the support and messages.”

The Caerphilly native, who joined the BBC dance competition show in 2017, announced last month that she had been diagnosed with grade three breast cancer.

She said she found a lump in her breast in April, the day before going to the Maldives on her honeymoon with fellow professional dancer Ben Jones, and hopes to raise awareness of the disease.

Dowden said after realising the lump had grown after her holiday, she went to the GP before being sent for an emergency referral.

She said: “My doctor explained to me that there are three grades, and three is the most aggressive, but they feel like they’ve caught mine early and to not be too alarmed because grade three would be expected in somebody of my age.”

Dowden married Jones in a star-studded Welsh ceremony last July after becoming engaged on New Year’s Eve in 2017.

She has also been vocal in raising awareness about Crohn’s disease, which the dancer revealed she was suffering from in 2019.

Dowden said: “With what I’ve done for Crohn’s, I want to do the same here. If I can try and turn this negative into a positive, it’s going to help me get through this.

“You just don’t ever think it’s going to happen to you. I hadn’t thought it was possible to get breast cancer at my age.

“My mum has had breast cancer, but she had it at a later age, in her 50s.”