Strictly Come Dancing star Alex Kingston has revealed she was diagnosed with womb cancer after haemorrhaging on stage.
Alex, 62, who made her name appearing in beloved TV series like ER and Doctor Who, received the diagnosis last year.
Since then, she has had treatment, including a hysterectomy and radiation therapy, which finished late last year.
The actor admitted to initially dismissing her symptoms as being related to old age.
‘I had assumed that the way I was feeling was old age, and I just sort of accepted it,” Alex told The Independent.
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‘I thought, “OK, this is what it’s like to be in my sixties.” But a lot of how I was feeling was to do with my illness.’
When she noticed blood in her urine, she decided to seek a diagnosis. Even then, however, she never thought for a second it was cancer, presuming it was likely a UTI.
Things came to a head while doing a play at the Chichester Festival last summer, and she had a haemorrhage on stage.
‘That was really shocking,’ she said. ‘I just knocked my knees together and prayed that it would soak everything up.’
With some help from some ‘incredible’ wardrobe women, Kingston managed to complete the show, and her doctors advised her to complete the play’s run before undergoing more tests.
It was then she learned she had womb cancer, but she was lucky.
The cancer had not spread to her ovaries, and she began treatment, which changed her life.
‘Despite having gone through all of that – and any cancer is really tough to accept, to steel yourself to go through all of the necessary procedures to get back into health – the minute I had the operation, I suddenly felt like myself again,” she said, adding she ‘hadn’t felt like that for years’.
Alex is now urging others to speak to their doctors about mysterious symptoms they may experience.
‘What I would say is, the body does know – and that was the body saying to me, “Help! There’s something really wrong.” It’s so important to seek advice and have a check-up.’
Strictly Come Dancing returns tomorrow night on BBC1 at 6:05pm.
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