Amy Dowden has said she is desperate to return to Strictly following her treatment for breast cancer.
The dancer, 33, from Caerphilly, said she was grateful to “see another St David's Day”, after being told she had grade three breast cancer last year. She was diagnosed shortly after filming started on the second series of her TV show Dare to Dance, where she travels across Wales teaching dance routines.
After a mastectomy and chemotherapy, there is now “no evidence of disease”. Amy returns to screens on Dare to Dance on Friday, saying: “Basically, it's like a people's Strictly and, for me, my perfect show.
“It's everything I love wrapped into one – teaching, choreographing, you name it. All in one.”
The show features a firefighter who kept his love of dance a secret, friends who want to dance at a Windrush celebration and a Wrexham FC-loving couple who brought their wedding forward because of a cancer diagnosis.
Just as she started filming, Amy found out she had cancer too. But she said she was determined the show must go on.
“I had just met these incredible people, I set them a challenge, I gave them their dance shoes, I started teaching them a bit of the routine. I couldn't take that away from them,” she said.
“I didn't want them to be punished because of my cancer diagnosis. So, my Strictly family saved the day.”
Amy worked on the programme right up until she had her surgery, but then roped in Strictly pros Dianne Buswell and Graziano Di Prima, and former Strictly dancers Oti Mabuse and Chloe Hewitt to help continue the coaching.
‘Nearly the Amy I was before'
She said making the programme and sharing her love of dance was her “escapism from reality” and it sometimes helped her forget what she was going through.
“I always say dancing's got me through my darkest of times,” she said.
“I'd forgotten, those moments when I was filming, that I was facing a cancer battle.
“It really did help me through what was a really difficult part of my life.”
Now, she says: “I'm nearly the Amy I was before.” Amy also has Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel condition diagnosed in her teens, which can flare up without warning and has seen her taken to hospital in the past.
She also faced complications with blood clots following her cancer treatment and said at times she felt “robbed” of her year. She added: “I guess I am still processing all the trauma and everything I've been through.”
Now her goal is to fully recover and get back on the dancefloor.
“Whether it's teaching at my dance academy, being with my Strictly family, whether it's talking, dancing with my husband and choreographing, that is my happiest place. That has been my medicine, I guess.
“The aim is, if Strictly will have me back, to be back on that dancefloor.”
— CutC by bbc.com
