Eastenders‘ Heather Peace has shared that her wife has also been diagnosed with breast cancer, weeks after publicly revealing her own diagnosis.
Heather Peace, who is known for playing Eve Sopal-Unwin in the BBC soap, shared in May that she’d been diagnosed in October.
Now the 50-year-old has shared that her wife, Ellie Dickinson, has had the same diagnosis. Speaking to The Mirror, Peace said that Dickinson got the news earlier this year.
“Her breast cancer was a smaller, aggressive lump, so she had a lumpectomy and then radiotherapy,” the actress said.
Peace then joked about the differences between them. “Of course then I come along with my 12 cm lump, absolutely ginormous, and mastectomy, chemotherapy, just about to go into radiotherapy. She’s like ‘Even that you have to do bigger’. It’s like ‘Hold my beer’.”
Peace went on to discuss more of her own diagnosis, admitting she’d been reluctant to act after noticing a change in her nipple. It was Dickinson who persuaded her to go to the doctor.
She was then diagnosed within three hours of seeing a doctor. “I felt like a dead woman walking,” Peace said. “It was so big and so quick that they told us and the seriousness and gravity with which I was told.”
The news, which came as Peace prepared to film scenes for her Eastenders character’s wedding to Suki Panesar (Balvinder Sopal), made the actress determined to continue working so she could complete that storyline.
But waiting for CT scan results was an agonising wait, she told The Mirror. “I looked at everything I’d done, everybody in my life – my kids, my wife, equal marriage coming in, crazy amounts of stuff – and I felt my goodness, I’ve really packed it in and it’s ok.”
The actress also confirmed she’d had a mastectomy on her left breast which was then reconstructed. She also confirmed that she’d finished chemotherapy and has recently started radiotherapy.
Peace and Dickinson married in 2014 and they have three daughters – Annie Mary Peace and twins Jessie and Lola Peace.
Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in the UK, affecting more women than men. According to statistics from Breast Cancer Now, one woman is diagnosed every 10 minutes
There are several symptoms to look out for including pain in one breast, a noticeable lump or change in the size or outline of a breast, and discharge from the nipple. For a full list of symptoms check the NHS website.
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