‘Sometimes he forgets who I am’: Sarah Beeny reveals she can’t tell her stroke-addled father she has breast cancer in case he confuses her with his late wife who died from the disease
- Sarah’s mother Ann – who was her father Richard’s first wife – died from breast cancer when Sarah was just 10-years-old
- She won’t tell her father that she has been diagnosed with the same disease as he suffers from ‘forgetfulness’ after having a stroke five years ago
- The presenter admitted she fears he will confuse her with her late mother as he sometimes ‘forgets’ who she is
- Sarah was given the diagnosis three weeks ago and has started chemotherapy ahead of a mastectomy and radiotherapy in the New Year
- The Macmillan Support Line is a free and confidential phone service for people living and affected by cancer. Call 0808 808 00 00 for support
Sarah Beeny has revealed she won’t tell her father about her breast cancer diagnosis in case he mistakes her for her late mother who died from the disease.
The TV presenter and property expert, 50, was diagnosed three weeks ago and has already undergone her first chemotherapy appointment.
Her mother – who was her father Richard’s first wife – died from the disease when Sarah was just 10-years-old.
Heartbreaking: Sarah Beeny has revealed she won’t tell her father about her breast cancer diagnosis in case he mistakes her for her late mother who died from the disease (pictured together on her wedding day in 2002)
Sarah confessed that she doesn’t want to confuse her father by telling him about her diagnosis as he suffers from ‘forgetfulness’ after having a stroke five years ago.
She told The Telegraph: ‘He sometimes knows who I am, then sometimes he doesn’t remember.
‘He knows that his first wife died of breast cancer. He gets lots of things muddled up and my fear is that I tell him, and tell him I’m going to be fine, but he’d remember the fact that I’d got it but not that I was going to get better. He’d think I was my mother.’
Illness: The TV presenter and property expert, 50, was diagnosed three weeks ago and has already undergone her first chemotherapy appointment
Sarah admitted that she had always suspected she would be diagnosed with the disease and had ‘waited 40 years to hear those words’ after her mother Ann died of cancer at the age of 39.
Sarah also revealed that her mother’s death deeply affected her and her own illness has ‘opened a tinderbox of stuff’ that she’s ‘swept under the carpet’ for a long time.
While Sarah didn’t want to make a ‘big deal’ about breaking her cancer news to her children , she told how she considered not telling her husband of 19 years ‘so it didn’t seem real’.
The Property Ladder presenter shares sons Billy, 18, Charlie, 16, Rafferty, 14, and Laurie, 12, with her husband of 19 years Graham Swift.
Keeping quiet: Sarah confessed that she doesn’t want to confuse her father by telling him about her diagnosis as he suffers from ‘forgetfulness’ after having a stroke five years ago
Loss: Sarah’s mother – who was her father Richard’s first wife – died from the disease when Sarah was just 10-years-old (Sarah and her brother pictured with their mother)
Sarah has previously spoken openly about losing her mother at a young age, telling the Daily Mail in 2020: ‘Death is hard for a child to get their head around but I was close to Diccon [my brother] and my father, and you just get on with it.’
‘The only positive thing about losing her when I was so young is that, to me, she’ll always be entirely perfect.’
Sarah will undergo a mastectomy and radiotherapy in the New Year and said she was ‘getting one step ahead’ of the disease by cutting her hair and donating it to a charity who provides free wigs to children with cancer.
Family: The Property Ladder presenter shares four sons Billy, 18, Charlie, 16, Rafferty, 14, and Laurie, 12, with her husband of 19 years Graham Swift
The TV star, who presents shows including Help! My House Is Falling Down and Sarah Beeny’s New Life In The Country, received the diagnosis after finding a lump which led to a biopsy.
She has been told the cancer has not spread and ‘there is an 80 percent chance of a cure.’
The Macmillan Support Line is a free and confidential phone service for people living and affected by cancer. Call 0808 808 00 00 for support
Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world and affects more than two MILLION women a year
Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world. Each year in the UK there are more than 55,000 new cases, and the disease claims the lives of 11,500 women. In the US, it strikes 266,000 each year and kills 40,000. But what causes it and how can it be treated?
What is breast cancer?
Breast cancer develops from a cancerous cell which develops in the lining of a duct or lobule in one of the breasts.
When the breast cancer has spread into surrounding breast tissue it is called an ‘invasive’ breast cancer. Some people are diagnosed with ‘carcinoma in situ’, where no cancer cells have grown beyond the duct or lobule.
Most cases develop in women over the age of 50 but younger women are sometimes affected. Breast cancer can develop in men though this is rare.
Staging means how big the cancer is and whether it has spread. Stage 1 is the earliest stage and stage 4 means the cancer has spread to another part of the body.
The cancerous cells are graded from low, which means a slow growth, to high, which is fast growing. High grade cancers are more likely to come back after they have first been treated.
What causes breast cancer?
A cancerous tumour starts from one abnormal cell. The exact reason why a cell becomes cancerous is unclear. It is thought that something damages or alters certain genes in the cell. This makes the cell abnormal and multiply ‘out of control’.
Although breast cancer can develop for no apparent reason, there are some risk factors that can increase the chance of developing breast cancer, such as genetics.
What are the symptoms of breast cancer?
The usual first symptom is a painless lump in the breast, although most breast lumps are not cancerous and are fluid filled cysts, which are benign.
The first place that breast cancer usually spreads to is the lymph nodes in the armpit. If this occurs you will develop a swelling or lump in an armpit.
How is breast cancer diagnosed?
- Initial assessment: A doctor examines the breasts and armpits. They may do tests such as a mammography, a special x-ray of the breast tissue which can indicate the possibility of tumours.
- Biopsy: A biopsy is when a small sample of tissue is removed from a part of the body. The sample is then examined under the microscope to look for abnormal cells. The sample can confirm or rule out cancer.
If you are confirmed to have breast cancer, further tests may be needed to assess if it has spread. For example, blood tests, an ultrasound scan of the liver or a chest x-ray.
How is breast cancer treated?
Treatment options which may be considered include surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormone treatment. Often a combination of two or more of these treatments are used.
- Surgery: Breast-conserving surgery or the removal of the affected breast depending on the size of the tumour.
- Radiotherapy: A treatment which uses high energy beams of radiation focussed on cancerous tissue. This kills cancer cells, or stops cancer cells from multiplying. It is mainly used in addition to surgery.
- Chemotherapy: A treatment of cancer by using anti-cancer drugs which kill cancer cells, or stop them from multiplying
- Hormone treatments: Some types of breast cancer are affected by the ‘female’ hormone oestrogen, which can stimulate the cancer cells to divide and multiply. Treatments which reduce the level of these hormones, or prevent them from working, are commonly used in people with breast cancer.
How successful is treatment?
The outlook is best in those who are diagnosed when the cancer is still small, and has not spread. Surgical removal of a tumour in an early stage may then give a good chance of cure.
The routine mammography offered to women between the ages of 50 and 70 mean more breast cancers are being diagnosed and treated at an early stage.
For more information visit breastcancercare.org.uk, breastcancernow.org or www.cancerhelp.org.uk
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