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‘I THINK ABOUT LIFE IN A DIFFERENT WAY NOW’

Diagnosed with breast cancer last year, JULIA BRADBURY has had to endure months of gruelling treatment (including a mastectomy then reconstruc­tion). Opening up for the first time, she shares her story – and hopes for the future – with Sarah Oliver

- PHOTOGRAPH­S: DAVID VENNI

It was two months before Julia Bradbury could bring herself to look at the site of her mastectomy. The last time she’d seen her left breast it had been prepared for surgery with dots and dashes of black felt tip marking the lines where it would be cut away. ‘They were like something you see in the butchers,’ she says. ‘I felt like a piece of meat on a block. ‘At that point – and I think this is a moment that every woman who has had a mastectomy will share – I had never felt so lost, so out of control and so deeply sad. The shape of me, as I knew it when I looked in the mirror, was never going to be the same again.’

The TV presenter, 51, best known for her

ITV walking shows and fronting BBC One’s Countryfil­e, was diagnosed with a 5cm tumour in her left breast last July. She underwent a mastectomy and had two lymph glands removed in October.

Six months later she is now having to come to terms with the knowledge that she does not yet have the ‘all clear’. Julia has ‘micro-invasions’ – tiny fragments of cancerous cells which have leached out of her milk duct and into her breast tissue. Furthermor­e, genetic testing has shown that she has a higher than average risk of her cancer coming back.

‘I’m in the top five or six per cent of women in the country in terms of the likelihood of recurrence. That puts me in the “moderate risk” category – higher than the average woman – but, look, it’s about percentage­s and perspectiv­es. The doctors have not found a huge spread of an aggressive cancer. I have lost my breast but been able to have an implant and keep my own nipple. I feel lucky and grateful every single day, and I have to learn to live with this risk, to accept the fragility of life, without it consuming me.’

Julia is acutely aware that other women have to have double mastectomi­es and rounds of chemothera­py. She considers herself very lucky, yet her life has still been upended by the disease.

Ultra-fit before surgery, she found herself barely able to move after it. And from being a hands-on mum to Zeph, ten, and twins Zena and Xanthe, seven (she has been married to her husband Gerrard for 20 years), she wouldn’t video-call them from her hospital bed in the brutal aftermath of

Shirt and trousers, Serena Bute London. Earrings and ring, Tilly Sveaas

tumour that could be trouble to treat. And the reality is, when you hear the words “you’ve got cancer” you think you are going to die.’ It swiftly became clear that to save her life, Julia would have to lose her breast.

Asked to describe how she felt when she was told she would have to have a mastectomy, she says: ‘I can’t. It’s all so unreal, you have to remind yourself that the doctors are talking about you.’

Faced with no alternativ­e, she decided that physically she would take control; upping her arm strength, building her pectoral muscles and increasing the mobility of her shoulders to create a bulwark against the coming trauma. But it was harder to prepare herself emotionall­y because ‘you just don’t know what awaits you on the other side of cancer surgery. There is no certainty about what it is, how far it has spread or what it is going to do to you. You are in the dark and that makes you vulnerable. I had a lot of questions. “What it is like to have a breast amputated? How is reconstruc­tion going to feel? Could I have done anything ten years ago to have reduced my risk of this happening?”’

In search of answers she did something drastic: she picked up her phone to chronicle what was happening to her and went public on social media to build awareness of breast cancer. After a chat with a friend who is an award-winning TV executive, the idea of making a documentar­y about her journey from diagnosis through surgery to recovery came slowly into focus.

Those initial video diaries and the subsequent filming by an all-female crew charted Julia’s medical appointmen­ts and her dive into the pioneering research which could soon identify every woman’s individual risk of breast cancer. They also show her tearful duvet days and her mother Chrissi making consoling soup in the kitchen of her daughter’s home.

The day before her surgery, Julia took the advice of a friend, a doctor, who’d had a double mastectomy. ‘She told me to say a formal farewell to my breast. I thanked it for all its years of service, the breast feeding, the bikinis, the jiggling about when you’re running for a ball… and I’m glad I did. Today, I am thanking the new one. I have built it into my daily meditation, welcoming it into my body. Silicone implants can be rejected

– I want mine to know it’s welcome!’

She’s sounding cheerful and resolute but the truth about her surgery is that she spent almost twice as long in hospital as she had expected, unable to get up without the help of her devoted big sister Gina. Her recovery began with shrugs of her shoulders and a shuffle to the loo.

For a woman who hikes up hills for a living as well as for pleasure, these tiny challenges might have felt frustratin­g. ‘From shoulder shrugs I graduated to shoulder rolls then spider-crawling my hand up the wall over my head. Those little physical victories, I loved them. One involved lying on my back, putting my hands together in prayer then touching the floor behind me. I thought I’d never be able to do that. It took me four weeks of trying. Succeeding was bliss because that was the moment when I knew that, yes, I could get back to the fitness I had before.’

Despite this optimism, Julia could still not look at her new breast. ‘I didn’t want to

‘I HAVE TO ACCEPT THE FRAGILITY OF LIFE WITHOUT IT CONSUMING ME’

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