Julia Bradbury has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
She is preparing to undergo a mastectomy to remove her left breast next month.
Surgeons will also remove tissue from her lymph nodes to establish whether the cancer has spread.
The 51-year-old told the Mail on Sunday newspaper: “It changes your world forever in an instant.
“There is no preparing you for those words. You hear ‘cancer’ and your brain starts to explode.”
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Countryfile presenter Julia found a lump in her breast last year which was revealed to be a benign cluster of cysts.
A mammogram this year didn’t return anything unusual, but at her follow-up appointment doctors found a shadow.
You hear ‘cancer’ and you brain starts to explode
The 51-year-old presenter – who has children Zeph, 10, and twins Zena and Xanthe, six, with husband Gerard Cunningham – found a lump in her breast last year which proved to be a benign cluster of cysts, but she had to have another mammogram this year and though that didn’t return anything unusual, doctors found a shadow at her follow-up appointment.
Julia added: “I have to hope I have caught mine early enough.
“A mastectomy is a shattering thing to go through but it means that I am going to live and be here for my children.”
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The mum of three – to children Zeph, 10, and twins Zena and Xanthe, six – is focused on the near future.
She said: “Cancer has so many points, the diagnosis seems like everything, but it isn’t. It puts you on a pathway and you have to navigate that while holding back your emotions so you are not overwhelmed all the time.
“Right now I’m simply focused on having surgery because I don’t know how I am going to be, if I will have more cancer to deal with, how I will cope with recovery, how life will feel afterwards.”
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