It’s been five years since I had breast cancer yet I’ve ignored ANOTHER big lump all this time, says JULIA BRADBURY. Now I’ve finally been to the doctor and have a simple message to all women: Don’t make my error

It’s five years since my breast cancer diagnosis and I have ­something to confess. It has taken all this time to admit to myself that I have another lump I need to deal with – one I ­discovered on my back shortly before my mastectomy.

Back then, my focus was on the breast ­cancer, the operation I needed and recovery after that. Everything else felt insignificant.

So when a physical therapist who was massaging me and preparing me for surgery noticed a lump on my right shoulder blade, I pushed it to the back of my mind.

All medics who subsequently saw it – including my breast surgeon at the time of my mastectomy – told me it was a harmless fatty lump called a lipoma. No one ­mentioned the big C word.

But a year ago it was suggested I get it checked out because of its substantial size – 5cm by 8cm – and because it feels uncomfortable. I notice it when I’m doing yoga or stretching, my ­family mention it on holiday and it gets bashed a lot during exercise.

Earlier this month I finally had it examined with a private MRI scan – and was told it was indeed benign. The relief was huge.

However, I was also told the ‘capsule’ surrounding it has torn and there’s a slight risk that it could ­transition into a cancer called liposarcoma, which has made me realise how important it is to remove it – usually a simple ­procedure under local anaesthetic.

People imagine that when you’ve had cancer once, your mind can’t help going to the worst places every time you feel a new niggle.

Those aren’t thoughts I allow myself because I believe ­positive thinking – and action – contributes to keeping me healthy. But as a 55-year-old working mum of three, when it came to dealing with that lump, life just got in the way.

To me, it feels symbolic. It’s a reminder of how easily even the most health-aware among us overlook things in the midst of busy lives, but also how empowering it can be to properly understand what’s going on inside our own bodies.

Post cancer, I’m doing everything I can to reduce my risks of being exposed to disease by eating the best food, doing strength and cardio­vascular exercise, noticing health changes and getting checked, and taking care of my emotional health.

But no one can guarantee perfect health. Last year I made another frightening discovery. During an MRI scan – part of a post-cancer follow-up check – a benign cyst was found next to the pineal gland deep in the centre of my brain.

I was told I may have been born with it and that no surgery was needed, but I should have another scan in six months to confirm there isn’t any growth or change.

I’d had no pain or side effects, such as sleep issues or headaches – but of course anything to do with the brain feels worrying.

Neurosurgeon Kevin O’Neill – who operated on Davina McCall in 2024 to remove her rare, benign colloid cyst – was very reassuring, however, and he has been inside more than 6,000 brains so I trust him.

I told my partner Gerard, son Zephyr, 14, and twin girls Zena and Xanthe, ten, about the cyst straight away. It’s only natural for family members of those who have survived cancer to feel anxious about it ­returning, so I reassured them that all was fine. My mum, Chrissi, worries particularly, so when I phoned her and my dad, Michael, I urged them not to fret if they saw it in the Press.

It could have been so different. And had that brain cyst been more serious – like Davina’s – learning about it ­earlier could have saved my life.

It’s why I believe taking personal responsibility for our health is so important, even by paying for regular full-body MOTs. We pay to service our cars and get our boilers certified, but somehow paying for our own health check can seem wrong.

Five years ago it was ultimately a private ultrasound test that identified the breast cancer – a full year after I found a lump ­during a work trip to Costa Rica.

I hadn’t ignored it. Back in the UK, I’d had a mammogram, but was told it was just a cluster of benign microcysts and nothing to worry about.

Both my parents have survived ­cancer, however – my mum had bowel cancer and my dad prostate cancer – and I’ve always been vigilant. On the recommendation of my consultant, I booked another private follow-up scan a year later.

By then the lump had become painful to touch, but I was told the imaging looked much the same. Nevertheless, as I was about to leave the clinic, my consultant suggested doing one more ultrasound just to be on the safe side. Thank goodness he did.

When he ran the transducer probe over my breast, he took a sharp intake of breath. On the screen was a tiny black dot, no bigger than the head of a drawing pin, in a sea of white, dense breast tissue.

‘I don’t like that,’ he said. More ultrasounds followed to confirm his eagle-eye findings, then, two weeks later, I had a biopsy.

Anyone who has had one will know how invasive and painful that is – like being punctured from the inside. When I felt the punch and heard the click of the needle, I shed a tear – the first of many.

All those horrible statistics we’ve read – one in seven women get breast cancer in the UK, for example – were swirling around my head. I remember thinking, ‘I have to stay alive for my children.’ At the time, Zephyr was nine and the twins just five. All I could see were their faces. They couldn’t lose their mummy.

Until then, I had felt invincible. My TV career, presenting programmes such as Countryfile, Watchdog and Britain’s Best Walks, revolved around my lifelong passion for exploring ­natural environments.

I walked – and worked – my socks off. Sleep was never a priority. Sugar fuelled long filming days – I thought nothing of scoffing Maltesers and Haribo en route to a morning’s filming, before pie and chips in a pub at lunch followed by treacle pudding for dessert. Food was about what I ­fancied, not what was good for me. And because I was slim, I felt healthy.

Alcohol helped me switch off – I drank at weekends, at work wrap ­parties and other social events.

My GP once described me as ‘medically boring’, which I wore like a badge of honour. How wrong could I be!

I took the biopsy results call in my garden on a bright, sunny day in August 2020, scribbling my ­consultant’s words into a notebook: Cancer. 6cm tumour. Mastectomy or lumpectomy – uncertain. Radio­therapy? Chemotherapy? Possibly.

None of it made sense. ‘This can’t be me,’ I thought.

A few days later, back in the garden, Gerard and I broke the news to the children. By then, I knew a mastectomy was likely, but I simply said, ‘Mummy’s not very well’ and Xanthe asked if she could still hug me. Her words still break my heart.

‘Of course you can,’ I told her. ‘I’ll need more hugs, tighter hugs.’

Those embraces stopped three days before surgery when Covid self-isolation rules kicked in – and that’s when I emotionally crumbled.

I’ve never felt so scared, fragile and vulnerable. I couldn’t ­comprehend what it would feel like to lose my left breast nor to have reconstructive surgery using a silicone implant, which is what my breast surgeon advised.

I’ve never chased cosmetic ­procedures. I’ve never had my teeth veneered or tried Botox, and I’d rather be jowly than have fillers. The thought of a foreign body inside me was frightening.

My mind was darting everywhere. Will my nipple be saved? Will it look weird? Will I feel sexy ever again?

A friend who had been through a double mastectomy years ­earlier advised me, before the surgery, to ‘honour’ my breast, so I thanked it for feeding my ­children, for being part of my identity, even for topless moments on the beach.

In October 2020, as I lay on the operating table, tears streamed down my face as I fell asleep under general anaesthetic. A piece of me was being removed, discarded, thrown in the bin. The grief for the body – the whole person – I was losing felt unbearable.

For eight weeks after surgery I couldn’t look at my body – the inflammation, the bloody scars, the damage and bruising. One day, my mum peered beneath the dressings and said, ‘You have to look soon – it’s beautiful.’

When I finally did, I felt instant gratitude. My surgeon had done an extraordinary job of saving my nipple and creating a breast that closely matched the other.

Thankfully, the cancer didn’t spread beyond the milk ducts, so I didn’t need chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

One doctor told me that the cancer was not ­lifestyle-related, and so changing my health or diet wouldn’t affect recurrence.

But that’s still not a risk I’m willing to take. I made a promise back then to move my body ­outdoors every single day, starting with slow loops of the garden the day I left hospital to now, reaching 10,000 steps daily. I lift weights, run and do yoga. Research shows that exercise after cancer can reduce ­recurrence by up to 30 per cent. For me, it’s a no-brainer.

I overhauled my diet immediately after my diagnosis, too, to build my gut microbiome, strengthen my immune system and reduce inflammation, which all helps guard against cancer.

I no longer drink alcohol – just six units a week increases the risk of recurrence by 28 per cent – or eat sugar. Now, I stick to a ­nutrient-dense, plant-rich diet and always ask myself, ‘Will this ­nourish me and my family?’

Inevitably, this pokes the trolls on social media. I’ve been called ‘the worst mother on the planet’ because people think I don’t ever let my children have sweets and treats and ice cream.

They do have these things, just not every day, and they understand why. Sugar damages your gut, blood and the mitochondria that powers every cell in your body. I don’t want them to have a bad relationship with food, but I want them to know that ­nutrition is functional.

When I’m away, sometimes Gerry deviates from our healthy eating and I berate him a little. I’m sure he thinks, ‘God, you’re a pain in the arse.’

Let’s face it, life was easier before I thought like this, but these choices, on top of my daily breathwork and meditation to regulate my nervous system, allow me to live without the fear of history repeating itself. They empower me.

Not long ago, Zena asked: ‘Mummy, what happens if the cancer comes back?’

I told her it wouldn’t be good, but that I’m doing everything in my power to stop that happening. Hopefully that offers them comfort. I need them to see that I’m committed to staying here.

Which brings me back to prevention. After my mastectomy, I took a saliva test, which estimates your risk of breast cancer and recurrence. My results showed I have a 13 per cent chance – slightly higher than average. Had I known that in my 20s, would I have lived ­differently? Would I have drunk so much? When I discovered a lump in my breast and learned it was benign microcysts, would I have pushed harder for more tests?

I know now that I have dense breasts, which makes identifying cancer via mammogram very ­difficult because the tissue and tumorous growths in it look the same colour – white.

Like me, between 30 and 40 per cent of women in the UK have dense breasts, so if the screening programme doesn’t work well for them, there’s a problem.

H ad I had an ultrasound scan from the start, my breast cancer treatment may have been different. Maybe I could have saved my breast – and the emotional cost that came with losing it.

Not long ago I had a ­conversation with BBC presenter Jeremy Vine about the feasibility of the NHS providing body ­diagnostic screenings for early detection of disease. He raised the issue of affordability.

I’m acutely aware that we’re ­living through a cost-of-living crisis, and I would never suggest that people spend money they don’t have. But the cost of scanning technology is coming down – and continues to drop with ever more sophisticated AI technology.

A decade ago, full-body MRI scans cost many thousands. Today prices start under £1,000.

For some, it may become something you plan for – the way you save for a holiday or a renovation, – a peace-of-mind investment.

There are signs of progress in the NHS. Last year it was announced that £650 million would be invested into technology that uses patients’ unique genetic information to guide clinical decisions, shifting the emphasis from reactive treatment to preventative care. There’s also talk of a blood biopsy that can detect up to ten different cancers.

And when it comes to your own health, you just have to pay attention, trust your instincts, get lumps and bumps checked and don’t wait for life to slow down – because it rarely does.

My latest TV series – a big adventure to Antarctica, which I embarked on just before Christmas as part of a three-part ITV series – was a milestone.

I didn’t think I’d ever feel safe leaving my family to do something so far away again, but I now trust my body to support me.

There are no limits to what I want to achieve, including an Amazon rainforest trek and exploring Madagascar. I feel strong enough to do it all.

I never agonise over the ­possibility of cancer returning. My ­lifestyle changes are making me stronger and healthier, and that is helping my mindset.

I’m on it. I’m taking care of my mind, my body and my soul.

Maybe I’ll get taken by a snake in the Amazon, but cancer’s not going to get me.

Julia Bradbury is supporting Vista Health’s Signs of Clarity campaign (vista-health.co.uk).

As told to Gemma Calvert