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Jamie Yeo to tell family about breast cancer
Jamie Yeo chose to disclose the news now as October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.PHOTO: JAMIE YEO/INSTAGRAM
Joanne Soh
UPDATED Nov 13, 2024, 09:54 AM
SINGAPORE – Singaporean host and former radio deejay Jamie Yeo has revealed she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021.
The 46-year-old posted on Instagram on Sunday that she discovered a lump in her breast during a regular self-examination.
She wrote: “Two years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I found a lump during a self-examination. Long story short, I was extremely blessed that it was an early-stage, less aggressive tumour.”
Yeo said she underwent “a lumpectomy and radiation therapy” and that an ongoing regimen of pills was enough.
She chose to disclose the news now as October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month “and I’m all in”.
She shared about her mental and emotional turmoil and how “life, on the surface, continued as normal, but nothing was normal any more”.
“The period of not knowing prompted a lot of soul-searching. Heart-numbing and indescribable fear, with bouts of faith, resilience, hope, gratitude and positivity,” wrote Yeo, who now resides in England with her British risk adviser husband and two children.
Yeo told The Straits Times on Tuesday that breaking the news to the family was quite a roller-coaster ride.
She first had a scare when an ultrasound showed the lump was “likely cancerous”. But when the biopsy and MRI results were inconclusive, both Yeo and her husband felt a sense of relief.
However, subsequent tests confirmed that it was breast cancer.
She told her daughter Alysia, 12, about her condition but not her son Luke, six, who was too young to understand, said Yeo. “Alysia reacted in denial. She didn’t speak much about it.”
“The period after the surgery with my ‘positive prognosis’ was surreal, guilty even – friends, acquaintances, the other patients I’d met were not so lucky,” she wrote in her Instagram post. “The only option was to live life fully, with gratitude, and a fierce motivation to change – to live cleaner, simpler, kinder, better.”
Yeo now swears by healthy living, by eating home-grown vegetables and grass-fed meat. She also tries to avoid processed food.
She has collaborated with medical website Medical Channel Asia where she speaks to other breast cancer survivors to promote the importance of early detection.
She added: “Breast cancer is a lot more common these days. Early detection isn’t just about survival but it’s also about maybe not requiring chemo.”
