EastEnders legend Sam Womack opens up about ‘brutal’ cancer battle
EASTENDERS star Samantha Womack has opened up about the “brutal” chemotherapy she underwent during her cancer battle.
The actress, known to millions for playing Ronnie Mitchell on EastEnders, revealed back in August she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Sam, 50, spoke about how arduous chemotherapy is to endure, saying it took a toll on her mentally.
“It’s quite terrifying at the beginning. It’s important to mention that when it’s needed it’s still an incredibly powerful and potent drug and does an amazing job,” the TV star told the Metro.
“But when you’re teetering between grades, meaning how aggressive the cancer is, you can sometimes sit, as I did, on a very fine line as to whether it’s needed or not.
“And it’s such a brutal treatment to have, because it’s poison, and you understand that as it’s going into your veins, and you feel it very strongly.”
She continued: “After my second round, I could feel this panic that something was very wrong.
“And maybe that’s because at that point my cancer hadn’t developed so far that I was relying on it. It was a prevention for me. So, I stopped, because I could feel my body was starting to do strange things.
“And that’s really important. The information that I had in order to make that decision was vital.”
She added: “I’m still a bit tired. Physically I’m really well, but my brain is a bit tired. Sometimes so much thinking hurts.”
Sam underwent her lumpectomy last year to remove the cancer – but shockingly told how she couldn’t feel the lump.
The actress spoke about her health and recovery in an interview on This Morning.
Appearing on This Morning, Samantha gave Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield a health update.
She said: “I’m really good. I was diagnosed three, four months ago with breast cancer.”
The star explained that she didn’t have a lump and just randomly tested.
“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.
“I was lucky, it was less than two centimetres. I had a lumpectomy, which is just a piece of tissue removed and five lymph nodes.
“The mad thing about cancer, when you have it, you understand there are so many different roads, different diagnoses, it is a terrifying world. It’s terrifying at the beginning but if there was ever a time to have it, there are so many new treatments now that are changing the face of cancer, it’s amazing.”
Despite her surgeon advising her not to get back to work to soon, Samantha was soon back to nine show weeks.
She said: “I think its my Nordic, Viking genes that helped get me back in quite soon after the surgery.”
Sam shares two children, Lili-Rose, 18, and Benjamin, 22, with her ex-husband, Emmerdale star Mark Womack.
Sam grew close to her Corrie boyfriend Ollie Farnworth, 50, while acting opposite him in the 2019 stage adaptation of thriller The Girl On The Train.