Hollyoaks star Ali Bastian, 42, has revealed she has been diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer after finding a lump while breastfeeding her child. The actor starred as Becca Dean in the popular soap from 2001 to 2007, and played Sally Armstrong in The Bill from 2007 to 2009. She competed in the seventh series of Strictly Come Dancing , finishing in third place in 2009.
The mother-of-two said the news had come as a “total shock” and she still wakes up forgetting it has happened. “I hadn’t been breastfeeding Izzy [her 19 month old daughter Isabella] at night but then David flew back to London for work and suddenly she was feeding like crazy,” she told OK! Magazine . “I was thinking, ‘Maybe she’s having a growth spurt or something.
’ “And because of that, my boobs felt sore. The next morning, I woke up and thought, ‘Ouch, this really hurts.’ And that’s when I felt a lump.
” Bastian assumed she had a “blocked duct” which was causing the pain and was prescribed a course of antibiotics. But when they didn’t alleviate her symptoms, her doctor advised her to visit a breast clinic. She was given a scan, but as she lived far from the clinic, she asked to have the results over the phone.
“We agreed that I would text her and that she would then call me back,” she explained. “I could hear it in the tone of her voice but she told me in the kindest way possible. She was very reassuring.
She said the words that I’m holding on to, that they have ‘inte.