28 April 2024 , 18:01
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Cheryl Fergison has urged women to get checked as she opened up on her womb cancer diagnosis for the first time.
The EastEnders actress, who played loveable Heather Trott for half a decade on the BBC soap, revealed to The Mirror that she was diagnosed with cancer nine years ago. She chose to keep her health private while being in the public eye but has now opened up about the "dark moments" in her life.
Cheryl, 58, was supported by soap co-stars Barbara Windsor and June Brown, who she confided in following the news. The TV star also went through a hysterectomy, early onset of the menopause, and the sad realisation that she wouldn’t be able to have children with her husband Yassine, all entirely unbeknown to her fans.
Opening up on how she discovered her cancer, Cheryl told us: “I’d gone for a regular smear test - which had been clear - but I’d started having a lot of backache and then I began spotting blood, which wasn’t normal for me. I had been fitted with a coil to help with very heavy periods but somehow I just knew something didn’t feel right."
A visit to her GP saw her referred for tests and a biopsy at a local hospital in Kent, and four months after that he received the news she had Stage 2 cancer of the womb. Hearing the doctor’s words was, she says, like “an out of body experience”. She said: “I was in absolute shock; stunned to the core. I couldn’t believe the doctor was talking about me.”
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Cheryl decided to keep her diagnosis private (WireImage)
The actress is known for playing Heather Trott in EastEnders (BBC)According to Cancer Research UK around 75% of women diagnosed with Stage 2 cancer of the womb will survive 5 years or more after diagnosis but all the statistics in the world didn’t prevent her thinking ‘why me?’. Cheryl shared: “I’d had a new beginning with Yass, everything was perfect. And then this.”
She had just married Yassine in 2011 before being told she had cancer. Cheryl underwent MRI scans and said: “I remember in the scanner having an earpiece in to listen to music and ‘Paradise’ by Coldplay was playing. I thought ‘this is about as far from Paradise as it’s possible to be’.”
The actress also had a slew of chest X-rays before medics recommended she undergo a full hysterectomy within weeks. “All I could think was ‘I have to get this thing out of me’ but it was very difficult. It impacted how I felt as a woman. I’d not long married Yassine and suddenly any thought of having a child together had been taken away. We may not have gone down that route, of course, but we’d lost the ability to choose. It brought on early menopause too; in terms of how I saw myself as a woman, it felt as if it had all come to an end. It was a horrendous time.”
Only last year, Cheryl was given the all clear when she consulted doctors after fearing her cancer had returned. She suffered backaches and explained: “They looked into it. They had trouble getting hold of my notes but, when they did and they looked at them, it turned out the initial treatment had got all the cancer."
For more information or support about cancer, you can contact Macmillan Cancer Support or you can call 020 7940 1760 for advice.