BBC Strictly’s Amy Dowden’s health woes – cancer journey, sepsis scare and ill backstage before exit

Due to injury, Amy Dowden had to leave this year’s Strictly Come Dancing series.

The 34-year-old Welsh dancer revealed she broke a bone in her foot, which made it impossible for her to continue watching the current season. Her partner, JB Gill, is now set to dance with Lauren Oakley for the rest of the series.

Amy had previously addressed her recent health issues in a candid manner with her fans. And in a devastating statement, she told Mirror she had “finally felt like me again” before her exit.

The Strictly Come Dancing professional, 34, first graced our screens in 2017 when she made her debut on the BBC dancefloor. The Welsh star was forced to leave the show last year after being horribly misdiagnosed with breast cancer in May. Following her gruelling treatment, Amy came back this season.

However, last week TV chiefs had to make an urgent 999 call after she fell ill backstage. Amy’s representative stated that because of her health, an ambulance was called as a precaution. She is feeling much better and thanks the Strictly family for their support. We request Amy’s privacy in matters of health is kindly respected”.

Amy has spoken about her struggles and cancer journey to raise awareness, but it has been a long road back. Here, the Mirror takes a look at everything she’s been through…

In 2019, Amy revealed she was suffering from Crohn’s disease. She went on to front the BBC programme Strictly Amy: Crohn’s And Me. She shared her experiences with the condition with other people who have Crohn’s and shared their stories with them in it. Crohn’s, according to the NHS, is a lifelong condition in which parts of the digestive system become inflamed.

Following a Crohn’s flare-up while on the Strictly Live tour in January 2022, the professional was taken to a Manchester hospital. Two years later, she was awarded an MBE for her services to Crohn’s disease “on behalf” of all those who live with it. Additionally, Amy serves as the charity’s spokesperson and ambassador, Colitis UK.

As well as Crohn’s, Amy has publicly shared her battle with breast cancer. In May last year, Amy revealed the shocking news on her Instagram. She wrote: “Hey all, I’ve got some news which isn’t easy to share. Despite having breast cancer recently, I’m determined to hit the dance floor again soon.

She later told HELLO! Magazine: “I was in the shower and I felt this hard lump in my right breast. I was in shock, I checked again”. Amy went to see her GP and was given an emergency referral after realizing the lump had grown while she was on her honeymoon in the Maldives with her husband, co-star Benjamin Jones.

She was then unapologetically diagnosed with aggressive stage three breast cancer. “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”, she continued, explaining that her mum had breast cancer in her fifties.

Three tumors and additional cancer specks were removed from Amy during a mastectomy that month. Additionally, her right breast was removed with some lymph nodes. Sadly, just days afterwards, doctors found a second type of breast cancer in the tissue they removed. They also discovered more tumours, including one close to her chest, and specks in her other breast.

Amy was advised to undergo chemotherapy after learning about it. However, her first reaction was to refuse it. “I thought that’s Strictly with a partner wiped out, that’s my hair gone, that’s my life gone. I was like, I don’t want to do that”, she told the Mirror.

Amy was adamant she didn’t want to dance until her former dance teacher intervened, even though her surgeon kept telling her that she could “dance forever and ever afterwards.” At the time, Amy and Ben were hoping they would still have children while IVF was being performed to create and freeze embryos.

“She gave me tough love and said, ‘ What’s the point of these embryos if you’re not going to have chemo? Because you won’t be around to have these babies anyway'”, Amy said. She finally decided to go through with chemotherapy.

But sadly, her first and second cycles didn’t go to plan, resulting in emergency hospital stays and life-threatening complications. First came sepsis, then blood clots. Amy recalled the first cycle when they said my blood pressure was so low that my vital organs would have started failing. A week later, when we met the paramedics, they said I might not have woken up the following morning if I had gone to bed that night.

Amy continued on her second chemo cycle after being assured by her oncologist that she had been unlucky, only to face terrifying circumstances once more. “I got blood clots, I ended up back in hospital”, she explained, adding that it was “frightening”.

After chemo, Amy recovered, and her hair started to fall out at home. She said, “I found losing my hair really painful and it didn’t matter how much I had planned because I was bald in top. I couldn’t even brush my own hair in the end. I couldn’t even look in the mirror.”

She shaved her head in September 2023, which she recorded and uploaded to Instagram. “We all did it together, my friends and family got together, we tried to make it as fun as possible”, Amy explained. They gave me inspiration, and I want to use my platform to inspire others to find the strength and courage they need.

After ringing the chemotherapy bell, Amy declared to fans that she was “proud of herself” and that her treatment was over. She shared a heartfelt post about the significant occasion with a video of her ringing the bell while teasing up to several hospital staff members.

She said: “I rang the bell and I’m so thankful I got to! My most difficult journey to date! Looking back over the past few months, I wonder how my body handled this both physically and mentally. From the words I’m so sorry Amy, it’s cancer and what’s your fertility plans. To having a mastectomy, two weeks later hormone daily injections for egg retrieval, a little Crohns flare up and then on to chemo plus shutting down my ovaries on the same day which sadly lead to sepsis, blood clots, losing my hair, my eyebrows, lashes (I have a few hanging in there) and three toe nails”.

Amy continued: “But also it’s taken away my love of life these past few months and of course my DANCING! It’s been tough. But hopefully this has given me more opportunities to live, which I’m forever grateful for and will never take for granted again. I’ll never be the same as Amy, but I do know that I’m far more powerful than I ever was and that I’ve made some incredible friends along the way.

The Strictly pro described the news from doctors as “words I dreamed of” and her “biggest accomplishment yet” when she revealed her health check showed “no evidence of disease” in February of this year.

On October 27, 2024, a version of this article was first published.

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Source: Mirror