Julia Bradbury tried to explain her breast cancer diagnosis to her kids "without petrifying" them.
Julia Bradbury wanted to find the right way to tell them
The 53-year-old journalist and TV presenter - who announced her diagnosis in 2021 and shortly after underwent a mastectomy to remove a 6cm tumour - has reflected on how she tried to find the right way to tell her three children about her illness, and didn't want to video call them while she was in hospital for the procedure.
She told The Times newspaper: "I didn't want them to see me like that. I thought it would be worrying for them.
"What's difficult with young children is explaining cancer to them without petrifying them. I was very aware that I had to be honest."
The day after Julia - who has son Zephyr, 12, and eight-year-old twin daughters Xanthe and Zena with property developer husband Gerard Cunningham - left the hospital, she had her sister do her hair and makeup so she had their "game face" on for her children.
She has been determined to "stay alive" for her kids.
She added: When I had that first biopsy, I was like, 'I want to see my children grow up. I want to live through GCSEs and A-levels and 21st birthdays and university'.
"I want to see them as adults. I just want to stay alive."
And Julia admitted having one of her daughters recently ask if her cancer will return was particularly heartbreaking.
She said: "That was really hard. Cancer has shaped who I am, but it doesn't define who I am. It profoundly changed my life and the way I think and behave."
The broadcaster was diagnosed with breast cancer in September 2021, one year after being told a lump on her breast was just a benign group of microcysts, and she has since insisted the diagnosis saved her life.
She wrote in the Daily Mirror newspaper: "Cancer saved my life. That may seem a strange thing to say, but it opened my eyes to what I was doing to myself. Before diagnosis, everything I did was at breakneck speed. I wanted it all, and pushed myself emotionally and physically to reach impossible goals.
"They say: ‘Time is free, but it’s priceless.’ Looking back, I didn’t value it at all."
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