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Ali Bastian - Surviving, Healing & Rewriting Her Life in West Cork
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What happens when you finally create the life you’ve been craving… only for everything to change overnight?
In this deeply moving and honest conversation, actress Ali Bastian joins me to share the story behind her bold move from London to the wild beauty of West Cork — a decision rooted in a desire for a slower, more connected way of living. But just weeks into this new chapter, Ali was diagnosed with breast cancer, turning her world upside down in an instant.
With incredible openness, Ali takes us through the reality of that moment — from finding a lump while breastfeeding, to navigating treatment in a new country, to the emotional aftermath that doesn’t simply end when treatment does. We talk about the shock, the fear, the strength it takes to keep going, and the ongoing process of healing — physically, mentally, and emotionally.
But this episode is also about so much more than illness. It’s about identity, community, motherhood, and rebuilding yourself from the ground up. Ali shares how the rugged landscape of West Cork, the power of female connection, and the simplest moments — sea swims, fresh air, slowing down — became a lifeline during her hardest days.
We also dive into:
– Growing up in the spotlight and navigating body image in the 2000s media era
– The reality of menopause brought on by cancer treatment
– Learning to accept and reconnect with your body after a mastectomy
– Redefining style, confidence, and what it means to feel like you again
– Why community and asking for help can be everything
This is a raw, powerful and ultimately uplifting conversation about resilience, perspective, and finding light in the darkest moments.
If you’ve ever faced a life curveball, felt the need to start again, or wondered how to rebuild after everything changes — this episode will stay with you.
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Welcome back to the 40 Plus Life podcast. Today I'm joined by the brilliant Ali Bastion, an actress many of you will know and love from her roles in Hollyoaks, The Bill, and Doctors, as well as her time lighting up the stage in the West End. You may also remember her from Struckley Come Dancing, where she brought her energy and warmth to the ballroom. In recent years, Ali made a huge life shift, leaving the UK behind and moving with her family to the beautiful surroundings of West Cork in Ireland, embracing a slower, more connected way of life. But alongside that, the new chapter came with an unexpected and deeply challenging one, a journey she has spoken about with incredible honesty, strength, and openness. Ali, I'm so happy to chat with you today. Welcome to the 40 Plus Life Podcast. Thank you very much for having me, and thank you for the amazing introduction. Really appreciate it. And your CV, it wasn't a difficult intro to write. Lovely to see you and get to have a just hopefully a nice, chilled conversation. We're recording this on a Monday morning, aren't we? So uh we're kicking off the week.
SPEAKER_00I've got my cup of tea in my hands and I'm just coming round. Thank you. Takes longer, doesn't it? As you get older, I'm like, oh, I sort of think I can spring out of bed and leap into action like I used to. I sort of working on soaps and things like that and being on that uh treadmill. I'd be really used to just sleeping for as much as I possibly can and suddenly arriving at work and being able to do it. And now I'm like, oh, I need a little bit of time and a cup of tea. Exactly. A slow morning.
SPEAKER_01Slow mornings are the best if you get the opportunity to have them. It's not always there for you when there's school runs and all of that to try and jump.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, small children and yeah, the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01So I'd love to just start by chatting a little bit about your acting career because you've had a really nice varied career across TV and theatre. You've done the reality shows like strictly. What moments have shaped you the most, do you think, both as an actor and a person?
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's a good question. I think from a career perspective, Holly Oaks was a really big moment for me. I was 19. Um, I was a child actress, so I'd always uh worked um and done bits and pieces, but I was finding it hard to cross over from being a child performer to an adult. What age did you start at? Um eight. Oh wow. Yeah, so it is uh it's just always something I always wanted, always loved. I was really lucky that there was a stage school round the corner from where I grew up, and so I went to classes there and uh and they had an agency, so I started working, started auditioning, and then I went to the school full-time. Um I was I've been reflecting on that period actually a lot recently, um, which actually, yeah, sorry, talking in circles, but that is actually a period as well that really kind of shaped me going to stage school and and all of that. I absolutely loved it. And um, my husband and I have recently launched a school in West Cork where we're living now. Yeah, so West Cork Performing Arts, and it is really I was we were there yesterday teaching, and I just had this moment where everyone was arriving, and I was like, okay, upstairs for drama, in here for dance, and all of that. And I was like, wow, this is really my happy place. This was really an important part of growing up for me, and to be doing that now for young people feels really, really good. And yeah, you know, when you have those moments where you're like, Oh, this is actually really what I want right now, and this feels really good. So it's really special, yeah. So so that's sort of how I started, and then I worked through my teens, um, but it was getting harder as I got older, and I think the industry, I think for there are all these moments maybe in life as well where you're seen in a particular, you know, associated with a particular period of your life, and then you're like, Well, actually, my life has moved on now, and you need the industry to see you in that new light. And Holly Oaks was a perfect sort of segue for me at 19, and it really changed my life as well. I gosh, were you 19? I was 19, yeah. So I went up for the audition, and um my agent was like, Oh, don't, you know, not in your wildest dreams, it's not gonna happen. There's it's a why? Why would they say that? That's horrible. Yeah, so me. Yeah, don't even think about it. Don't even think about it, it's not gonna happen. I think they were saying it in a don't put any pressure on yourself. For probably the way I say it sounds worse than it was. But um, they call them, it's a horrible expression, but like cattle farming auditions, um, where isn't that horrible? I hate even saying that aloud, and I hope people don't refer to it as that anymore. But just hundreds and big old open auditions, hundreds of people, they don't really know exactly what they're looking for. Um, but you you just go and show up and you know, roll the dice. And uh and I didn't hear anything for a couple of months after that, so I wrote it off completely, and then uh got called up to Liverpool out of the blue, did an audition, and then called up again the next day and got the phone call on the way home on the train. So I went home and said, Oh mum, I'm moving to Liverpool. And I stuck that was the Thursday and I started on the Monday. Oh wow, gosh, that was a great turnaround. It's crazy. And there was a little gang of us that was starting as the new students, and uh yeah, everything changed very quickly. But it and I stayed up there, I was there for what was it, five or six years, six years, I think, and I loved it. I learned so much on that job, and it I suppose it was a really informative part of my life. It was yeah, 19 to 25, I was there, so I sort of grew up there, you know, to some degree.
SPEAKER_01You were filming Hollyoaks, right? If I remember rightly, and looking back at that sort of height of girls on TV shows were being sort of turned into these kind of sort of pin-ups, it was a lot about who was the hottest, who who was making it into FHM, who was in the the top 20 sexiest, whatever. I mean, that was a really big part, I think, for yours and my generation for for girls, how they felt about their bodies. I mean, how how did all of that play into how you felt about yourself?
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah, because funnily enough, not something I've spoken about loads, because in a way, we at the same time as being part of this era in the noughties where we were, yeah, like you said, FHM, you know, all the lads, man, zoo, not oh god, we were doing calendars, and then also it was very like circle of shame in magazines and all of that, really sort of highlighting different parts of women's bodies, and yeah.
SPEAKER_01Someone on the beach with cellulite on their leg with a big circle around it, it was just vile.
SPEAKER_00It was gross, really shaming, really awful. Really fear. I remember we were f afraid of that as well. It was like, but what if I end up, you know, what if they do that and how yeah, how is that gonna make me feel? But at the same time, media trained to not talk about that side of life at all. So it's all happening, but again, like you know, a lot of things in life, it's like, but no one talks about it because it's all, you know, it's always the image of like the happy family, the you know, all of this. Wow, there's yeah, you know, a lot that we were coping with.
SPEAKER_01And so that's so interesting that your media training, they were telling you not to talk about it. Like, don't don't don't complain about it because you'll just end up looking like you're whinging. Do you think that was it? Or just pretend it's not hard.
SPEAKER_00It wasn't really because it wasn't even addressed. I don't think anyone even really was addressing or realised what we were all participating in it to some degree, but there wasn't a discussion around is this right, is it not? It wasn't in question, but it was more that we were, you know, always put out that you're single and available, always put out that you know, a very don't give them too much of yourself, don't let them know who you are because you need to play a character and you need to be uh and people need to identify with you as that character. So as an actor, don't put yourself sort of out there. So it's just so yeah, even talking that through, it's just quite complicated.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's lots to unpack, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think something we're only uh beginning to unpack now. Well, you know, there's more discussion now around that period, and what were we all doing?
SPEAKER_01I know like what I feel a bit of almost maybe embarrassment and shame that at that age when I was first starting as a presenter, I remember, and I know my colleagues were thinking the same, we we all we wanted to get that bikini shoot. We we thought that was going to be us making it, and that was actually probably at the time the only thing that was being offered to us. I remember when I was working with ITV and I was part of the ITV play gaming TV shows, and you know, the only PR that we were offered was the you know, underwear shoot for the star and a bikini chute in in Dubai. And I'll admit I did take the one for Women Magazine because it felt more wholesome. I said no to the star because I didn't want to be in my underwear in a newspaper, and and I know one of the girls did do it and called me in tears once it went into the paper because she just felt I think she just felt she'd made a really terrible mistake in doing it. And just looking back, that that that's what we were not reduced to because obviously we were still doing you know great work. You know, you were doing a brilliant job on Holyoke because I felt like I was making a mark, you know, getting into presenting, but kind of it did us a disservice, I think, maybe.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, and I think yeah, it's uh it's it's being mindful not to punish ourselves for the decisions that we were making at the time as young people, yeah. Um, in an industry, you know, that was moving very quickly. So much was yeah, I remember that as well, that feeling of like people, you know, wanting to be in those doing those shoots and doing all of that. For me, it never it what didn't come easily, it didn't feel very me. And so I think like you, I was trying to tread this fine line of doing uh what I sort of had to, um, being contracted in a job and everything, but also trying to advocate for myself and do only do the things I felt comfortable with, but it didn't always work out that day that way. And I did do shoots that um I I found really difficult. I did do a cover of FHM and I remember crying on the set because I was 19, I was standing there in my underwear. Um and for me, all of that stuff was quite triggering, and I didn't even have the language for that then. And I guess that's what we reflect on now, and you know, I can understand a bit more about what was happening to me and why it was hard for me. Um, but you know, there were other girlfriends of mine that were I don't and I don't want to speak for anybody else, but perhaps more robust and in that way and body confident, and people that were dancers and you know, really inhabited their own skin and their bodies in a different way. For them, that wasn't such a big deal, but for me it was, and you know, we all we all walk a different kind of path with this stuff. But it was it was certainly a strange, a strange time. It was it was a learning.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I remember getting teary on the on the shoot. It was in in Dubai, and it was, you know, it felt very exciting and glamorous to get to go away to do this, but I remember getting teary just because I just felt really, really self-conscious in a bikini and comparing myself to the other girls. I'm not very busty. I thought you had to be booby to do a bikini shoot. And I remember um one of the other women girls on the on the shoot is uh was a celeb, and she was the highest profile out of the the girls that I was there with, and she had proper rules about what she would and wouldn't do, and it was a really good lesson. She she would do bikini, but she had to have like a cover-up thing, you know. She she had her boundaries of what she she would and wouldn't do, and I thought, okay, that's that's what you've got to do. But I also felt she was able to do it because she was a bigger name. So yeah, it was.
SPEAKER_00It's difficult, isn't it? And we were maybe conditioned as well to think you had to do, you know, you'd have I don't know, you kind of have the craft that you're passionate about, you know, for me acting and for you presenting and all of that, you know, side of it that we're kind of trying to make our way in this industry, in the industry that is very competitive and very hard. I don't know. There's so much there. I know there's a we could do a whole chat on that.
SPEAKER_01I didn't even intend for us to go into that one, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, no, it's definitely it's definitely a thing. And I think it's quite, you know, with the um I did watch the America's Top Model um documentary recently. So I think it's in the yeah, that's sort of under scrutiny again, that period, and and as it should be, and as we should be, you know, but even now the culture with uh social media and everything, we find new ways to, you know, put ourselves out there and bring each other down or criticize, it's still there, isn't it? Yeah, it's it can be really harsh, so it's finding a way to uh navigate these things where you're only giving of yourself what you feel comfortable with. And for me, even social media has been actually quite positive, and I feel quite fortunate in that way, and that my little corner of the internet feels like quite a safe space, and I haven't had terror, you know, thank thankfully, you know, I've got nice interactions with people, and it's actually created quite a lot of connection, especially over the last couple of years, and that that's felt quite symbiotic because I've actually needed that too, and that encouragement and support, so it's that's actually felt really nice, but I've tried to share in a way that feels reflective and kind of truthful for the different areas of my the experience that I'm going through, and I find it quite cathartic writing, and you know, sharing in that way actually feels quite creative as well. So there's sort of something in all of that that I've really appreciated.
SPEAKER_01Well, let's look back over the last couple of years because you made a big decision with your family to upstacks from England and move to beautiful West Cork, which I know very well, and happens to be where I actually got to bump into you one day and we got chatting, and that's obviously how this has come about. But what made you move to West Cork?
SPEAKER_00I think what made um I kind of yeah, so many thoughts.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's a beautiful place, isn't it? It is.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I love it for starters. I absolutely love it. And the more we get into life here, the more I want to get into life here, and I kind of sink into, I don't know, more of a peaceful way of life, a slower pace of life, and it was something that I was really yearning for, I think. And um, we were living in West London, we were in a really lovely spot, and I'd been there for years and years, and um uh it was having, I suppose, oh, where do we even start? We had my first daughter Isla just as COVID was starting. So she we had her a week before lockdown, and then so that was you know the COVID journey that a lot of people had that were having children at that time. And what age were you then? I was 38. Okay. Yeah, 38 when I had her. So I always say, like, oh, I was late to the party with motherhood, but I think I yeah, things just happen kind of I don't even know. Why am I caveating that? I know there's so many women say that so many more women are having babies later. Absolutely, and for me it was 100% the right thing. And I think I thought I was ready for a long time, but actually, you know, and also needed to meet my person, didn't meet my person until later on. And so for me, that really was a a really happy time and a really like I was I felt really ready and uh as ready as anyone ever is, and had had Isla, but then the lockdown sort of experience was you know an intense period. I don't know, there were just so many different things that were happening in my life. And did you have a connection to to Ireland already? I've always loved Ireland. I've have a really good friend who lives up the west coast, Jodie Albert, who's a really good friend of mine, and I'd come and spend time with her and her. We used to work together on Holly Oaks, and I'd spend time with her and her family, and I think she she could see the impression that the place had on me, and that I'd kind of my whole nervous system, everything would just settle, and I I loved it. And so whenever I was out there, she'd be like, Come and have a look at this house, come and look at the you know, like trying to sort of encourage me to make the move. And then I met David, and I um he brought me over to West Cork where his family were from, and uh I fell in love with it down here completely, and so we'd come out for holidays and things, yeah. Um, but it was really, I suppose why I was stumbling over it before trying to find this the story of it and how we ended up here, that how we made the actual decision to move, which um for me I always move, isn't it? It's a big move, and I always felt like if I was going to leave London, I wanted to really change it would be to change my life, it wouldn't be because I grew up in the suburbs, grew up in in the home counties in Berkshire, and um I did I wanted a different and a lot of people make that move, you know, where they have children and everything, just it but still want to be able to commute. But I wanted the big change really, so maybe there was something in me that always was looking for it.
SPEAKER_01The my parents live in West Cork as well, hence why I was over there and and we bumped into each other. And gosh, when I get off the plane, there's just something about the air, it's it's different, it feels so clean, the freshness, everything about it. My shoulders drop, and my parents live right down on one of the sort of southwest peninsulas, and it does feel like there's nothing else in the world when you're there sometimes, and that slower pace of life, the the no-makeup, the carefree vibes are they're really special, so I can totally understand why you would want that that life out there.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, yeah, it is everything you just said, it is special, and I felt that straight away. It's beautiful, it's an amazing environment. Um, but I think also for me on my journey, I just suddenly felt like my internal world wasn't matching the environment that I was in anymore. Like I'd a lot had happened, I'd lost my mum, I was living in West London, we had thank you, had second our second child, and then I was I was struggling, and I was in all honesty really burning out, and I sort of couldn't keep up with that London pace of things. And in the end, I said to David, I think we really need a circuit breaker. I would I'd had um Izzy was a C-section, my second one, and I wasn't healing, and I was sort of she was about seven months old at that time, and so I said to him, Can we just go out there for a few weeks? Like I think I really need um You need to get away, I need to stop, I need to get away. And I and we went out there and and we both just settled, and uh my everything healed, my C-section healed, it's never been an issue again. And gosh, that's interesting. Yeah, I just feel like I followed my nervous system out here and I really need it, and it's hard to put into words how much I needed it, and I don't and I don't didn't at that point understand how much I needed it, but something was pulling me. Um, and then when we went back, we started to have the discussion like, could we do it? Could we really make this change? And my husband is amazing like that, in that I will drop these sort of crazy ideas, and it did come from me. Yeah, and at the beginning he's like, No, no, like it's not gonna no, we can't, and then like the next day he's sending me um, you know, he's on the internet looking at houses, sending you right places, yeah, yeah. It's like he kind of drop, I drop it and then I wait, and then he starts and then he starts coming up with plans, and he's uh we always have this joke with us that I'm like, we need to adopt a school of basking sharks, and he's like, I'll build the tank.
SPEAKER_01Oh gosh, that's so lovely that he's that supportive.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he really, really is. Yeah, so the idea was the seed of the idea was planted, and then we just kind of followed the thread, and we did and then we did it, and yeah.
SPEAKER_01Have you managed to obviously you mentioned Jodie that you've got a great friend over there, but have you managed to create your own community around you? Have you got a new village of people? Obviously, yeah after sadly losing your mother. Have you found other people that can help not take that position, but you know, step in and be that help and support for you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I really have in a different way. And it's not that you know, I had a lovely, supportive, like little network around me where I lived in London, and we really bonded through COVID um just on our street. So I've had had some great have some great mates there who, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, came out to see me and everything. Um, so it's not to take away from that, but this has just been a different experience of that. I didn't even know the number of people that live in the area that I live in, but it's a really small community. And a friend of mine was like, Do you know there's like 270 people that live where you live? And I was like, No, I didn't even know that. Yeah, I didn't know I was part of such an intimate community, but you get to know everybody though as well, which is amazing. I love it, I love it, love it. And people as well, you know, I was diagnosed with breast cancer six weeks after we moved, so we were still in boxes. We were it was literally one of those moments that and you couldn't I couldn't have written it. I had yeah, yeah, it totally came out. Did not see that coming. Did not see that coming. I was like, Yay, our new life. This is so exciting. Gosh! Like everything burning to the ground, and then yeah, it was so uh such a scary time, and I suppose the first thing then was like, okay, to get the treatment sorted out, and then and the hospital here, C U H was so good and have really looked after me.
SPEAKER_01And I know, I know it, because my my dad's been so was recently ill and and so got to experience a little bit of of the hospital there, and I'm I'm so glad you got great treatment.
SPEAKER_00What happened in that first few weeks and months? So I I remember making a call to the doctor who diagnosed me, and I was like, What do I do? I've just got here. Do I go back? Should I go should I go back to England? And she was like, No, we've got you. Yeah, you we will take care of you. Don't worry, let's just get get you sorted out. So for starters, that was an incredible. Moment of just feeling like, okay, they've got me. I don't have to suddenly about turn and leave and and everything. And so my I started chemo very quickly, uh, amazingly. Um, I had chemo first, so I was straight into uh six months of that, and so yeah, it's hard, isn't it? Because we segue, it's such a this part of my journey is so wrapped up in the move here and the new start, and it's not sorry, it's difficult to segue straight into this. It's just kind of natural, yeah. But also just to say on the the big change and making that change, I am still so so grateful for that. I have no regrets whatsoever. And actually, it kind of got me through that period where I was okay, life had to slow down completely and stop.
SPEAKER_01And I almost like the universe knew that you needed it, they like it knew what was coming.
SPEAKER_00I feel that, you know, and and me and my own knowing as well was just like something, it was almost like dragging myself to safety before I absolutely collapsed, I think. And like something in me was like, We need to get out of London, we need to change, uh, we need to go somewhere else and be somewhere else. And I sort of felt that we we got us here, and then I collapsed really. But then this is an environment where there is again, like it's hard to put it into words, the vastness of it, the wildness of it, the wild Atlantic way is incredible. There was so much sort of coming that so much that I was going through with chemo. It's you know, it's dark and twisty and it's hard, and like to be able to kind of walk out uh and breathe the sea air and be in this incredible environment.
SPEAKER_01That it it's healing, I think. The you mean you mentioned the Wild Atlantic way, that that that rugged, wild is a windswept, it's sideways rain, and then it's glorious sunshine and it's green, and it's oh, I don't know. I guess it it's it took away a lot of the noise, maybe from your life.
SPEAKER_00It did, it did in a way, yes, it did. And I think I was saying to somebody recently, there's this isn't a place where you run from yourself because it's so there's so much space, there's so much time. There's it's you've actually got to sit with yourself, haven't you? Yeah, you are confronted with yourself, with whatever you're carrying, whatever's gone on for you. And by this point in my life, it was a lot, there was a lot there at on every level, mentally, physically, spiritually, all of it. Yeah, and but you but you are confronted with it, but in an environment I remember after my mum died, just feeling like, oh my, I all I kept saying to people is I just need a soft place to land. Yeah, I just need I need arms around me and I need a soft place to land. And that was that was the like drive, I think. And then I found it here in this place, in that it's a place that can also hold you through those through that difficult stuff. And it's like people, the people, the culture, the community, they can sit with you through difficult things, they'll climb down in the hole with you and put their arms around you in a way that I don't didn't feel that in England. I did not that it's not there, but maybe in my own kind of environment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you've got to be quite lucky, I think, to find that sense of community. You can, I mean, where we used to live, we didn't really know anyone on our streets. And my husband and I and kids, we've in the last few years, we moved to a little a little close, and now we know everyone in our street, and we've got a WhatsApp group, and and if somebody needs something, they uh they ask, and every everybody's dying to be the first to help. It's like I can do it, I've got the cake tin, or I can I can take you know, one of your kids or whatever, or look after the cat. I'd never known that before. Even growing up, I don't think we really knew beyond our instant neighbours. And so it when you do get it, when you do find it, it is it is really special. I mean, I live down on the south coast, so I I don't have that experience of of having it in London. I know some people that do have that in London, but yeah, it's I'm really happy that you found that that special community in in West Cork.
SPEAKER_00And Ditto hearing that for you as well. Like it's really it's nice that you have that and that it is it is there too. It's just you you have to kind of find it and maybe be at a time in your life where you're ready for that. Because I think earlier in my life I was running at 100 miles an hour and I was okay with that because that was the season of my life that I was in.
SPEAKER_01But things things evolve and change, and what you look for is that's a really good point, and something which I think is is actually a good sort of conversation in in the 40 plus life. And that when I was young, I just did not stop. I remember my nana, my my nana lived with us uh at my family house for for a good few years, and before she passed away, she made it into 90 or to 90 at least, 91. And I remember I would come running in from one job and I'd be like, Oh, hi, Nana, sorry, I've got to just grab my bag, I've got to jump on a tray, I've got to get to another job. And she just said, gosh, you're always so busy, you're always, you know. And I can hear her saying it now and and thinking it kind of breaks my heart a bit that I wasn't able to stop more and just go, oh no, let me just, you know, I should just sit down with you and we'll have a cup of tea. And, you know, I don't need to have packed in three different jobs in one day, but you think you have to in your in your twenties. Well, I did anyway. I did, yeah, absolutely the same. You can't say no to anything, you've got to take every opportunity and and jump on everything. And so now in my 40s, I do if I see a an empty day on the calendar, I'm like, great, I'm not filling that with anything. That's gonna be a nothing day. That's gonna be at the best. I love that.
SPEAKER_00And they've got going where the wind takes me day. Like I love those days, or literally another girlfriend, like, yeah, exactly. Or uh when nobody else is in the house and everybody's out. Oh my god, getting like a day in the house by yourself. I love it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it doesn't be very often. When I stay up in London, sometimes um uh my my parents have got a fl a flat because they live mainly in in West Cork, as I've mentioned. But sometimes when I'm working, I I stay there if I'm working for a couple of days in a row. And people always say, Oh, what do you do? Just go, do you go into London? Do you go, do you go and meet up with people? I'm like, no, sometimes I just get I go to MS and I get I get their dirty fries, which are covered in cheese and jalapenos, and I binge watch something on Netflix, and it's the best. You are literally living the dream in that moment. Yeah, it really is. I love it, it really is. Can I go back a little bit? I I think it's it would be helpful for for people to know how what was what was your indicator that you knew that something was wrong for your cancer diagnosis?
SPEAKER_00So I did find a lump. So I was um breastfeeding. My littlest was then by the time we moved here, she was 18 months, and I was still feeding. And David, our sort of I don't think our plan also with moving countries was hugely robust. Right. We were like, we're going to do this, and then we're gonna have a base that we love, and then we'll continue to go where the wind takes us for work, and if we need to go back to England or we can work here, like that's what we'll do, we'll be really light on our feet, and this was kind of the loose plan. Um, but then every yeah, everything changed very quickly. But in that moment, David had got a job back in England, so he'd um gone back to work for a few just for like 10 days. He was filming, and I was and then Izzy went into hyperwort with the feeding again, and we had night weaned her, but she was feeding all through the day and all through the night um fun times, and remember it. Yeah, and I remember getting really, really sore. I probably did have a touch of mastitis, um, which is probably what you thought it was as well. Yeah, absolutely, and so I was feeling my breast and I felt into my breast and I found a lump and was like I remember I panicked completely. It was a Sunday morning, and I um called South Doc, which is like the out-of-hours thing here, and um they got me in really quickly. I was in the same day to see them, uh, got examined.
SPEAKER_01The same day, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, that was yeah, to see a GP that morning, and so they because and being a breastfeeding mum, they were like, Okay, let's give you antibiotics, you know, maybe leave it a few days and see if it breaks down. It's probably if it presented very much like a blocked ducks, um, and I'd had those before, and it did feel similar to that, on in all honesty. Um, and so they were treating me for that, and a couple of weeks went by and I kept feeling it, and I was like, This is not changing at all. And I was trying every trick in the book, I was blasting myself with the shower hair, trying to break it down, the electric toothbrush. I was like, Ah, I like everything I could think of, nothing was changing. Yeah, and I remember thinking, I this is fit actually feels like it's in the um structure of my breast. I remember thinking that feels like struct it feels structural. And I um so I uh went back to the GP and I was like, I really think I need to have a referral, and so they referred me to the Orchid Centre up in um Cork, which is this amazing breast cancer place, which I've now spent an awful lot of time. Yeah, um, but going in I was there in the morning by lunchtime, I knew something, you know, I that was, you know, it was pretty clear that something was off. Um and I'd seen all the top brass really by lunch uh by the lunchtime. I was like, my god. But your head was spinning. Incredible head was spinning, yeah, complete terror. Um and then by the end of that week I had my diagnosis. Um, and yeah, and then it all sort of kicked off from there. But it was yeah, it's you know, not so frightened breastfeeding mothers at all, and you know, it might well have been a block duct, and that you know, those better than the majority of things that happen like that are not breast cancer, but sometimes they are, and that's what happened what that's what happened for me, and um, so it's you know, and actually I I have to say I wasn't checking that regularly. I sort of thought being breastfeeding, my boobs were unrecognizable, they were bigger than my head, they felt completely different. Yeah, and um your body doesn't feel like yours anymore, does it at that point? So, yeah, it's really you know, and I I know that for a lot of people breast breastfeeding can be a preventative measure as well for breast cancer. So I kind of thought uh it doesn't happen to breastfeeding mums, and then you get into it and it's like, oh, you know, it can. And so just being aware and early, you know, like everybody says, early detection. Yeah, early detection is key. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'm actually doing a um a hundred K walk with Copperfield in June, and there that charity is really about trying to uh educate people in early diagnosis and fight and knowing your body, knowing when it's changed, but particularly amongst younger people because it it is on the rise. We are seeing you know, this sort of higher stats, and people just don't think it happens to women under 40, really. And so you were you were were you on the cusp of 40 at that point? Were you 42? 42, 42.
SPEAKER_00By that point, yeah, just yeah, second habit. You still kind of think it still feels young, doesn't it? Yeah, and I don't know how long I'd you know, mine was I think they would still consider it an early breast cancer. Okay, but as you got more and more into the diagnostics and as things went by, it wasn't as early as I would have liked. Yeah, but it's I'm somewhere in the middle where it, you know, so that yeah, that that was where I was. But it and where are you now? Where thank you for asking me that question. It is always anchoring because it's really I can feel myself sometimes when I'm talking about it, it still feels so raw and quite traumatic. Um, but so where I am now is that I've completed all my uh active treatment. Um, I am on a lot of preventative medication. I'm what they call what they what they refer to, it's like obviously still not completely embodying this as a concept, um, a breast cancer survivor, which I really need to uh to begin to really embody. Yeah, it's just kind of believing it. It's like that's that part of you has to catch up that feels like I'm safe. It's okay. You're out the other side. That I'm out the other side, but there's an ongoingness to how it feels, I think, sometimes, and that I, you know, when you I mean, rightly, my doctors when I first got diagnosed weren't giving me a roadmap for the rest of time for how this would be. It was, you know, and at times it's so mentally overloading, all it can be is the next thing and the next thing, and just kind of dealing with it with things a little part bit at a time. Yeah. But I I think was looking forward to the notion of there being a button on it at the end, and it's like, that's you, that's done, off you go, see you later. And actually, what happens is there's ongoing appointments and checkups, and you know, which is good, they keep a really close eye on you, um, and yeah, treatments moving forward, which again it's like thank God, thank god that exists and I can have it.
SPEAKER_01And um, do you do you know whether you'll have to stay on medication? Do you do you have to carry on with that for life?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, it's not for life, uh, as far as I know. Like at the moment, I'm on one drug that I take for two years, um, and I'm into my second year of that now, um, which is a targeted breast cancer drug that they now give some, you know, everything's very tailored now, and there's sort of I can't remember how many different types of it's not a one a one glove fits all, yeah. Not at all. So we're all on completely different pathways, and even sitting in, you know, chemo, you'd be not every person in there would be on some, you know, a different pathway and a different cocktail of what they're having. Um, but the yeah, so I'm on this for two years, and then and the hormonal therapy, which sort of put me straight, I went straight into menopause and out the other side with uh with chemo, and then this the drugs that I'm on now, the hormonal therapy, keep me there. Um, so that I think is five years, but I know some women it's five to ten years, and that advice they can't tell me now because the advice changes, the research changes all the time. So we'll see.
SPEAKER_01So when you know, obviously you're going you're already going through breast cancer, but to be walloped with intense menopause, that must be quite a lot. Quite a lot.
SPEAKER_00Quite a lot, yeah. And again, it's sort of not something that's at the forefront at the time. And actually, I remember they asked me very early on where I stood in terms of my family, and I I sort of knew vaguely that there were some measures they could have gone to to preserve fertility in some way, and I was like, no, I'm I have my two girls, like I did feel that my thank god, you know, thankfully I'd I'd had them. Yeah, I don't again don't know how long I'd been unwell as well. So I don't know how long I'd had it, but I had my kids and I'd got through my pregnancies and I felt like this is I'm done now. So so I kind of on that front let it just let it all happen, really. Um and but yeah, it's it's kind of more when you come out the other side that you're like, oh, okay, this is and no menopause. And um we haven't battered you enough yet. Yeah, enjoy. Good luck, yeah. Um, and so but there again, even with a lot of things with women women's health, there's thankfully more and more discussion around it, and around you know, sometimes I feel a bit left out about over the great HRT chat because that is not available to me at the moment. It's not so it's like, oh okay, but then again, there is, you know, there is room for some discussion with some of these things, and there's some things that are available to you. So that's been a bit of a voyage of discovery. And again, I think my doctors don't go, look, here's a list of things that might be happening to you. Yeah, they sort of wait and see what comes up and then deal with whatever seems to be presenting as the um the the things that are the top of the list to deal with at the time, but case by case. But for me, I've sort of had to explain to them as well, and I don't know if this is in my training and conditioning, but I am quite good at fronting it. And so I Well, you are an actress, exactly, and they'll go in there and be like, and I was like, listen, guys, like I will present quite well, and I may not actually be coping, so I really need them to know that, and so I've actually and even just me saying it out loud, I think is like a thing. So do you have days where you're really not coping? Yeah, I think it's yeah, I do, and I I don't know, it's like I don't think I ever have given myself permission to really like grieve it all, and the diff all of it that and I sort of moved from one crisis to the next, to the next. And so I'd say that grief is coming in now, and I'm having periods where I am um feeling it, but I think I it's like I only let myself little by little. Um have you had help in that respect? Yeah, all of the help, yeah. I have have and I continue to. And can I ask what has helped? Yeah, um, what has helped? So therapy um over the years, and when I first got diagnosed, I um said to them, Look, this is I've really recently lost my mum, and now this is happening, and I've just moved countries, like I don't know how I'm gonna do this. Like, I don't know. And so at that point they were like, right, we have onk psychology, and so we'll put you with them, and so they have been amazing, and I've been on that pathway alongside my treatment, which has been just invaluable. Um, and just to have them check in on me, and you know, with the yeah, with all of it, just keep checking in on me. That is what I really appreciate, and uh, and then the being able to access counselling at the right time, and even then, I think I'm only scratching the surface with it now. I think a lot of it is still quite bottled up, and so it's fine. And sometimes a friend of mine who's been through this as well, it's said to me, ask me if I had the moments where I feel like the cork just flies out of the bottle. Yeah, and I do, and everything just everywhere. Yeah, yeah, I had it recently, I and it's often triggered by going back in for my hospital appointments because I at this point feel quite phobic about going there even. And so I um but I do it and I have to, and it's so important to continue to do those import uh appointments, yeah. But I'd had this, I'm going to have reconstruction and so you had a mastectomy. I did, I had a mastectomy on one side, and so I um yeah, I will have the I couldn't have it simultaneously, so I'm having it down the line, but I'd sort of thought it was gonna be in a certain window and of time, and because uh just the availability of my surgeon who's off for a while, and she was like, I'm you know, I'm going on Matt Leave, and so I'm not gonna be able to do this until like dot dot dot. And I was like, Oh, okay, so like ridiculous. Congratulations! That's wonderful, wonderful news, and then and of course it is like babies and all mothers and brilliant, yes, amazing female surgeons doing fantastic work and having babies, yes, but I also need this, but I also need this, and I um walked out and just like had but it wasn't just about that, it was everything. It was it, it wasn't even probably you know, it was 10% that 90% everything last drop of water in the overflowing bathtub, and it all just came speech. And I just cried in the corridors of the hospital, and then like a little homing pigeon, found my way to the cancer centre, which is uh in in C U H the Daffodil Centre, and I know the nurses in there, and I was like, Can I just sit down and just be with being here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I bet they scooped you up. They totally scoop me. Yeah, so these incredible resources as well. When you go through this sort of thing, you yeah, you don't even know when you're not, you know, when you haven't dealt with anything like this, don't even know all of this exists. Yeah, it's like, oh, there's these incredible people doing work that you know is absolutely invaluable.
SPEAKER_01Gosh, and you know, it's it is amazing that these sorry that's made me feel a little sort of whoa just no no no god don't even be ridiculous. I'm just it's just that thought of these, you know, they're not just nurses, are they? They're not just doctors, they're they're they're real humans with real feelings that I'm sure get really attached to their patients as well, and they just they just want to help you.
SPEAKER_00They do, and I've felt that you know through it, and I'd have times, you know, cancer can feel like a lonely path because um there truthfully there are people that can show up when you go through this stuff, and there are people that can't, and it just and it's hard because it can hurt, and it's um a shock as well, I think. But then the people that do show up, you're like and it's not to blame people, it's just that it's I think it's so confronting, they get scared, yeah. It's scary, it's scary, and it's hard to watch someone go through it. Um, and in yeah, for so many reasons. And and actually have to say, I've also been that person on the other side of it where I've known someone go through it, and I found it hard to be close to for my own reasons, so it's so complicated, and I know that. But the people that do show up and the support that appears is incredible, and you uh you know, like when the sh hits the fan in your life, like the people that are around your kitchen table, it's never who you imagine it was gonna be, but you are so so grateful and never forget that kindness and that support. And and I have felt that so much in West Cork from the people that I've met and the community here, and I think you asked me before about have I made you know, have I made friends here and have I made a life here? And yes, I really have. I've got a great gang of girlfriends and there's a swimming group. I love swimming in the sea. And I remember I was in counselling and I was talking about sort of uh other things that had happened to in the run-up to my diagnosis and then it was only the end of the session. She was like, and cancer like how do you feel about that? And I suddenly felt the panic rise in me. Right. And I was oh yeah I'd almost sort almost sort of had a panic attack in there and she sensed it and was brilliant and was like let's ground you and you know feel the your feet on the floor and everything and really help me. But she was like close your eyes and take yourself to your like happy place somewhere that feels safe and somewhere and straight away my I went to the sea where I live there's the beach and it's where I go swimming with all the local ladies and I was l and sometimes you know we're all on a WhatsApp group you show up you may or may not know the people uh that you're gonna swim with but I yeah or just you know I say swim lightly in the winter it's being like in and out like a tea bag but that was my place that was my safe space being held in this beautiful environment surrounded by a group of women that I don't know who are or getting to know and um and now I can call friends but like in those early days that was my safe space and I don't do I don't even know if they know they meant that to me but that's you know that's what I mean I suppose when I say that about being held by the environment that you're in and like I really felt that and that was yeah really special.
SPEAKER_01Oh I'm really happy for you that you've got that amazing oh gosh that village now we're gonna change tack a little bit because um the 40 plus life is has the tagline taking on midlife with style and it's not just about fashion when I talk about style I mean just how you are taking on life and but also I think style for you right now how does that present is it about softness is it about making yourself feel wrapped in in coziness how does style show up for you a bit of all of the above like little from column A, little from column B, I think the last year or so I've started to enjoy it all again which is nice.
SPEAKER_00I think as my hair started to grow back I've had extensions and had the colour put back in I've gone blonde again and that's felt really good. That's always been part of my identity and I think that going through this it strips you back to I don't even know but that yeah the bare bones and looking in the mirror and thinking I don't know who this person is in front of me and then comes the rebuild which I am so grateful that I get to be in this space and like not everybody gets that. So here I am in this bit where I'm putting myself back together and I really am under construction and a work in progress but I um really um starting I'd also just come through that the motherhood part of living in leggings and comfy things and breastfeeding clothes and all of that into treatment into now what? And so I'm like really enjoying finding out what I like. And who you are now as well who I am now how I dress now how I want to show up in the world and um yeah I think I'm always yeah I've always felt about myself I might try and feel a bit put together but I never seem to be able to completely do that. And it'll always be like you know I'll have brush my hair but forgotten to brush the back or something will be tucked into my knickers or something it's like never I can never quite get it like polished. Yeah that's how I feel polished yeah it's not in my locker band. You know kind of it's lovely though that there's always just that slight bit of I don't know wonkiness or something spilt down my top some one of my kids has put a hand print on something like it's always not on your shoulder. Snot on my shoulder yeah fine like it's fine I can absolutely deal with that. But it's all the beautiful messiness of of motherhood and yeah everything that you've gone through as well just yeah sort of showing up how you are and some days I feel like trying to put myself together a bit more some days I just want to and like you said being in like comfortable soft things and feeling comfortable in my body like that's definitely a thing figuring out how to dress after masteptomy that's a thing and um I saw you did I'm bringing up I saw you did a a clip on one of your Instagrams and you you whipped out a prosthetic I think I know I always feel quite excited to do that which is strange isn't it what is that about but I've got a an um a one that I love and it's bright pink and I've worn it since I got it every day swimming it everything they're called boost and they're uh we love is it I love oh god I'm gonna check what exactly what it's called but it's called a boost okay it's um I can put a link in the show notes oh yes please yeah do because honestly when they hand you you know my lovely nurse Margaret was so gentle and kind and supportive when she showed me you know it was the day after my mastectomy she gave me the my um prosthetic at the hospital and so that I'd have something straight away which is important I think but I but my boobs were still a lot bigger I was always very little and then with babies and everything in life like they I've completely changed. So what I actually ended up with this amazing huge piece of silicone in my hands and I was like what is this what has happened oh my god and it they're very and for me it was really heavy and not very comfortable so these are like light and colourful and don't represent don't actually they're not doing an impression of a boob right which I think is for me that's quite good actually not trying to be a boob like it's just something else but it gives the say the right line in clothes and it is look she's getting it out it's such a happy colour so I feel like nice it's bright pink it's bright pink so and I could show my kids as well because I'd sort of at the beginning I was you know I've got really young children so I'm in that phase where you don't shut bathroom doors and all of that and now I and then I was sort of showering on my own and not letting any and now I just try and just be be around the kids and it'll be a thing and they ask me questions and that's okay. And it's okay for them to think really yeah be curious and ask me and like yeah I have a scar this is you know we or it's real yeah and I don't want them to I don't want them to feel that I'm ashamed of my scar and all of that because you know yes accepting my body after everything that it's been through is hard but part of the journey but part of the journey is part of it and an ongoing an ongoing part of the journey definitely but yeah clothes and feeling good and for me it's like finding anything that means I look in the mirror and I feel like myself and I feel like I look well and I feel like you get into a bit of a loop then like your brain sees you you know you see yourself like that and you start to feel more like your old self and I think that matters.
SPEAKER_01It does matter indeed. Now we're going to finish things off with a silly little game of this or that just for fun.
SPEAKER_00So are you an early morning or a night owl neither sorry never been either more I would lean towards a night owl because I like I don't like the fun to stop. So sometimes if I'm out and about like I'm the one my husband will be like it's time now come on we're going home but once I'm having a good time I don't want to want it to end but more I'm not a morning person at all. TV set or theatre dressing room oh they all evoke such different lovely feelings but sorry this is supposed to be a quick game and I want to elaborate on it no one's been quick so far. Oh really so the theatre dressing room there's something about hearing the crowd on the relay and getting yourself ready and that those moments before a show that's instantly exciting the adrenaline it's exciting but I'd say in terms of like feeling grounded and really like in my happy place in my element I'd say film and TV set.
SPEAKER_01Yoga or coastal walk oh coastal walk at the moment but I do love yoga it can't be a a Westcourt coastal walk they are no they're the best that's magic.
SPEAKER_00Beach day or cozy by the fire beach day 100% beach bum podcast or music music probably sorry I do like I do like the podcast but I like I lose myself to music. Me too planning everything or going with the flow 100% going with the flow. My husband and I did those uh when we first met um personality what you call it Myers Briggs like tests to see and we are actually weirdly we came out exactly the same oh weird so I don't know if that's good or bad but on everything apart from decision making and where I am a hundred percent well no I was like 98% instinctive and he used 98% top take a top down view on everything and yeah so that's exactly that's probably good to have that I think it is massively yeah not finally I always like to ask my guests to leave a recommendation to the listener is there something that has helped you or that you're loving right now that you'd like to share um probably a couple of things. Now we've uh touched on boosts like for anyone who's going through or is going to go through mastectomy I would really uh recommend looking at them as an option because it's been a bit of a game changer for me and much more comfortable I don't even notice it and they're very light so not so much backache. And um then also we wanted to mention Percy Health who that's an online platform for people going through cancer full of um different professionals that support people through that journey. So there's mindfulness there's yoga meditation also oncology nurses physiotherapists um different people to speak to at different parts of your journey and I was connected with it by a friend who gave me her friends and family um so that I could access it. I'd say if you have a friend that's going through this that is and you could give them access to it it was a game changer for me I spent a lot of time so it's a paid platform is it I I yeah so you'd pay for the different um the different things that you access yeah but I think I that could be quite a nice thing maybe for the people supporting somebody maybe to go in on together and get that just have a look at it and also to help them get set up on it because that's the other thing when you're in if someone gives you anything when you're in that moment what you have to do is access this platform. You're in completely cross eyed and dealing with so much don't give me live admin yeah yeah not life admin but just like here I've seen this thing let me pull it up on the computer this is how you get into it and this is these are the people you could speak to if you want to do and they're very specialist so I spend a lot of time lying on my bedroom floor doing like yoga and mindfulness and of speaking to the physio after my breast well in the run up to my breast surgery oh PT as well are after my surgery so all of that online which is brilliant and you can access it in Ireland it's a UK company but that was a really good thing for me.
SPEAKER_01Sounds amazing I shall put a link underneath the the show notes for this. Ali it's been a really really special beautiful chat how can people find you and follow you if they want to find out more thank you and the best way to connect with me is through Instagram so I'm AliBastianInsta Ali with A L I Bastion B-A-S-T-I-A-N I shall pop it again I can put a link below thank you Ali it's been such a treat thank you so much for taking time out of your day nice to have a proper chat with you lovely thank you really nice well uh thank you for listening and if you want to hear more from the 40 plus live make sure that you're subscribing and commenting and doing whatever it does to help me get this podcast out there. So thank you for listening and I'll see you next week thank you