Former Hollyoaks actress Ali Bastian has admitted she was worried she'd be seen as a "cancer patient" when she lost her hair after being diagnosed with the illness.
Back in September, the Channel 4 star told fans she was in "total shock" when she was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer. The 42-year-old said she has been having weekly chemotherapy treatment and then early next year will undergo a mastectomy and radiotherapy treatment.
Ali, who competed on the seventh series of Strictly Come Dancing, first found a lump when she was breastfeeding her daughter Isabella. Doctors first thought it could be a blocked duct, but when antibiotics didn't stop the soreness, she went to a specialist clinic where tests revealed the cancer.
Now, mum-of-two Ali, who played Becca in Hollyoaks, admits she didn't want to be labelled a "patient" for fears of losing her identity. She said she was happy to "trot around with a bald head" when she was at home, but feared that it was "all anyone would see".
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alibastianinsta/Instagram)Image:
alibastianinsta/Instagram)Speaking to The Sun's Fabulous magazine, Ali said the first time she took her wig off, she was only worried for a "split second". She said: "Then it felt all right, and then it just felt normal. I'm hot and my bald head needs some air!" Ali also said she found her hard to "feel compassion" for her breasts, struggling to come to terms with what was happening.
Last month, she shared the moment she cut her hair off with on Instagram, explaining it was a "small price to pay for the chance to be well again".
In another update shared on social media, Ali posted a snap of herself wearing a grey shirt and a hair wrap around her head. She said: "Some days you don['t] my feel like the fighter people tell you you are, and that's ok too. This is not an easy path. There is cortisol in tears and they are better out than in."
In September, she told OK! Magazine about the diagnosis. She said: "It was a total shock. I have mornings when I wake up and I’ve forgotten… and then suddenly I remember. I’m still trying to process it.” Her husband David O’Mahony added: “I was with the kids and Ali stuck her head round the door and said that cancerous cells had turned up in the biopsy.
"She said it in the most subtle way so the girls didn’t twig. I could see how scared and in shock she was. It’s so tempting to try and ‘positive’ your way through news like this but it just hit us like a sledgehammer. I just had a feeling of it being so unfair that Ali had been dealt this hand.”
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