Hollyoaks star Ali Bastian has revealed she has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and will undergo treatment including chemotherapy and a a mastectomy
Hollyoaks legend Ali Bastian has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
The former soap star, 42, told OK! Magazine “life threw us a major curve ball” after she quit London to move to West Cork with her husband and their two young daughters when she discovered she had stage 2 breast cancer.
Ali is currently undergoing weekly chemotherapy treatments, which will go on for around five months. She will follow it up with a mastectomy and radiotherapy.
The mum-of-two got her diagnosis in the last week of June. “It was a total shock. I have mornings when I wake up and I’ve forgotten… and then suddenly I remember,” she said. “I’m still trying to process it.”
Ali found a lump when she was breastfeeding her 19-month-old daughter Isabella. She said her breasts were feeling sore after her little girl started “feeding like crazy”, and she then found the lump.
Initially, the doctors thought she had a blocked duct and Ali was given antibiotics. But it didn’t clear up, so Ali went back to the doctors and got a referral to the breast clinic.
Ali got the news over the phone from her doctor. “She said the words that I’m holding on to, that they have ‘intent to cure me’,” Ali told OK! magazine.
The star is going through her treatment, with tests showing the cancer is hormone-driven with the possibility that it might be genetic. Both her maternal aunt and grandmother had breast cancer.
She has also asked whether doctors would consider a double mastectomy, thought “it’s not been fully discussed yet”.
Ali has had the support of her former Hollyoaks co-stars, including Sarah Jayne Dunn, Carley Stenson and Jodi Albert, who was “one of the first people [she] called”. She said: “We have a deep connection that I’m very grateful for.”
Ali’s husband David O’Mahony helped her cut her hair to a shorter style, and she also now wears wigs. She also had her eyebrows tattooed and some semi-permanent makeup to prepare for the hair loss.
She now has to wait for her mastectomy, which will be another tough hill to get over emotionally. But she is optimistic.
“I will get through this and come out the other side,” she said.
