Victoria Derbyshire has movingly opened up about how "scared" she was in the run up to the operation to treat her breast cancer. The Newsnight presenter, who was diagnosed in 2015, underwent a single mastectomy later that year before eventually getting the all clear.
However, Victoria, 57, reflected on how worried she had been before the surgery in a piece for The Sunday Times, after Angelina Jolie revealed her own double mastectomy scars in a photoshoot for Time France this week. The broadcaster revealed the poignant act for her young children, then aged 11 and eight, shortly before she went into hospital.
She recalled: "Back then I was anxious and scared I wouldn’t wake up from the anaesthetic. I wrote love letters to my two young boys and left them in my bedside drawer just in case." She is mother to sons Ollie, now 21, and Joe, now 18, with her husband Mark Sandell.
Victoria continued: "It may sound strange but there is something beautiful about my neat scar: the 13cm line reminds me that I am one of the lucky ones - the kind of cancer I got could be removed in theatre; the kind of cancer I got meant I survived."
The star added that she wasn’t "distressed" about only having one natural breast. "I just wanted diseased tissue out of my body and couldn’t wait for the operation to be behind me," she explained. "To be honest, most of my hair slowly falling out during six rounds of chemotherapy was much more painful for me than losing a part of my body."
In October, Victoria opened up to Good Housekeeping about first being told she had cancer a decade ago. "When the GP first told me the tumour was malignant I can remember Mark gripping my hand – I didn’t gasp or cry," she remembered. "Then we came outside and it was a boiling hot day and I cried and screamed and swore. It was really grim."
However, Victoria continued: "Once I was told that my cancer was treatable then my whole perspective changed. I was very, very lucky my cancer was totally treatable. What nobody told me was that while there would be huge lows – a mastectomy, six rounds of chemotherapy and 30 radiotherapy sessions – it was all doable. I had to find that out for myself."
Three years after surviving cancer, in 2018, Victoria finally married her partner of 16 years, journalist Mark - with their sons walking her down the aisle. In a post on Instagram celebrating their first wedding anniversary, she wrote: "It was one of the most magnificent days of our lives and I love them all so much."
