The Duchess of York has declared it is “time to heal and nurture” herself after having a mastectomy.
Sarah Ferguson, 63, was revealed at the weekend to have been diagnosed with breast cancer, and on an episode of her podcast recorded last week, she revealed she was having the affected breast removed and vowed to get “super fit” as part of her recovery.
Her long-time friend Piers Morgan, 58, said moments after he read the news Ferguson had cancer he texted her and she replied: “Time to heal and nurture me now!”
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The former “America’s Got Talent” judge added Ferguson also said: “Hopefully caught in time x thank you.”
Morgan revealed the texts in his column for The Sun on Monday night, in which he added about Ferguson’s vow to look after herself in the wake of surgery: “It was the first time I’d ever heard her speak about the need to put herself before others, and it took a life-threatening moment to do it.
“It’s typical of her to instantly try to turn such a negative experience into a positive, but very untypical of her to suspend her astoundingly selfless instincts and focus instead on helping herself.
“I’m very glad she is though, because the world’s a better place with a healthy vibrant Sarah Ferguson in it.
“She’s one of my favourite people; incredibly kind and empathetic, absurdly generous, endearingly modest, hilariously fun-loving, and ferociously loyal.
“Yes, she’s flawed and prone to dropping massive clangers, but so are all my favourite people.”
Recalling their initial meeting, Morgan added: “I first met ‘Fergie’ in 1996 at the instigation of Princess Diana who begged me to ‘go a bit easier’ on her scandal-engulfed sister-in-law when I was editor of the Daily Mirror.
“‘She’s her own worst enemy,’ I said. ‘I know,’ sighed Diana, ‘but she means well, she has a big heart.’”
Ferguson said on her “Tea Talks” podcast: “Tomorrow I’m going in for a mastectomy... I have to go through this operation, and I have to be well and strong. And therefore, no choice is the best choice.
“I’m going to go out there and get super, super well – super strong.”
Ferguson – who has daughters Princess Beatrice, 34, and Princess Eugenie, 33, with her 63-year-old former husband Prince Andrew – added she was grateful for her diagnosis as it has forced her to focus on herself instead of other people.
She said: “I taking this as a gift to make real changes for myself and to nurture myself and stop trying to fix everyone else.”