Jan Bolwell

" I think the most terrible thing about breast cancer is that you can have this life threatening disease and not feel sick! And you think, how can I?

How can I have something so seriously wrong with me and not be ill? And it's actually terrifying that, thinking that there's this lethal thing and you don't know. I don't know if there's cancer cells still in my body, and I am only going to know when I get sick, really sick

"I still had the hours in the bedroom alone, dealing with it. However much support I had around me, ultimately you're alone.

"So I was coming out of the anaesthetic and wriggling my toes and I just knew that the only way I was going to come to terms with this was to dance. And Hell, I hadn't been on a stage for fifteen years, and I wasn't thinking of it in stage terms, but I knew I was going to have to dance.

"I have to wake up and look at that mutilation every day of my life, and it's hard.

"I could've had a reconstruction, but I opted not to do that. And even if I'd had, the scarring would've been on some other part of my body in order to achieve a reconstruction. It just didn't seem like an option for me.
I believe profoundly, that we shouldn't hide this issue of breast cancer."