EastEnders star Samantha Womack revealed her breast cancer was found during a “random check” as she gave fans an update on her diagnosis.
The 50-year-old appeared on Tuesday’s This Morning alongside hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby where she said the disease has “attacked her femininity”.
Womack announced her cancer diagnosis when she paid tribute to Olivia Newton-John on social media following her death from breast cancer in August aged 73.
Discussing her diagnosis, the actor told Willoughby and Schofield that she did not find a lump when she was diagnosed four months ago, saying her cancer was discovered in a random check.
She shared: “It was really incredible because I didn’t find a lump, I didn’t feel unwell.
“There had been a lot of illness around our friends and family and I just thought I’d get a random check and I had an ultrasound, and it showed a little shadow - at that point it could be anything, a cyst… then I had further investigations and then that diagnosis.”
Describing herself as “very lucky”, Womack revealed that the lump was less than 2cm and was able to undergo a lumpectomy to have the piece of tissue and five lymph nodes removed.
She went on to describe how breast cancer as a disease attacks your identity as a woman.
Womack continued: “Breast cancer is a strange one, it attacks your body and your femininity, your hair, your breasts, all these beautiful women of all ages.
“So many women should be checking themselves in their thirties. That is an important message to get out and checked as well.”
The actress also described battling cancer as “terrifying” but praised the treatments that are available now to treat the disease.
Womack, who announced her diagnosis on social media by posting a picture of Olivia Newton John following her death, explained why she revealed her news in that way.
She explained: “I always had quite a precarious relationship with what you share on social media but also challenging yourself, thinking, ‘Am I doing this because I want likes or am I doing this because there’s actual genuine intention behind it?’
“So, at the beginning, I was like, ‘I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do’ and then Lily, my daughter was in the kitchen with Ollie [Samantha’s partner] cooking and she read about Olivia Newton John, and she was on her phone.
“She just read it in the kitchen and I’d been with Olivia, just for a dinner after a show I’d done, I’d played Sandy in Grease.
“It was just at the beginning of her diagnosis and what struck me was her journey had been 30 years and she was at the end and I was just at the beginning, and it took me back.
“I felt very moved by it… I thought, ‘I want to share it. I want to talk to people. I want to put it out there" and it was amazing, the love that came back. I felt empowered by it.”
