Strictly Come Dancing: Amy Dowden can't wait for 2023 to end

Strictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden has said she cannot wait for 2023 to be over.

The 33-year-old revealed in May she had breast cancer and only finished chemotherapy in November.

The same month she broke her foot and just a few weeks before Christmas she was rushed to hospital with a blood clot on her lung.

"I can't wait to see the back of 2023, I'm not going to lie," the dancer from Caerphilly said.

Speaking on her BBC Radio Wales show on Sunday, she said: "After having a mastectomy, chemotherapy, fertility treatment, the lot, I'm now finally looking ahead to 2024 and I've got a good feeling it's going to be my year.

"Hopefully I'm going to get that glitterball and bring it home to Wales."

Last month she rang the traditional celebratory bell to announce the end of her chemotherapy.

"I was a bit deluded thinking when I rang the bell that was going to be it," Amy told Behnaz Akhgar on BBC Radio Wales on Friday.

"And it really has not been. I broke my foot due to having neuropathy from chemotherapy."

Neuropathy is a condition that can be brought on by chemotherapy and can affect the hands and feet.

Amy had hoped to return to Strictly but the plan was dashed by the injury.

"I've had blood clots, one on my lung which I was rushed into hospital with from chemotherapy, I've got fatigue."

Cancer Research UK described clots as a common side effect of the disease, with up to one in five patients expected get them.

Recovering from chemotherapy can take time, Amy said she had learned.

She said: "I think I kind of told myself that once I rang that bell that was it. Amy's back, life is back.

"And I have still had setbacks, but I am trying to be as patient as I possibly can, trying to listen to my body and just know that it has been through an awful lot."

Amy was said she was grateful to have "got through it".

"Our bodies are so powerful and I'm so grateful to be in the position I am in, to have got through it, to have had surgery and I just want to take my time now next year to build up my strength to get me back to where I was before," she said.

Amy said she had friends and family and her pink sisters - other cancer patients - to turn to for support.

She added: "Since speaking out about it I have connected to so many other pink sisters and I have a lovely community online, in which we can ask each other questions, and we are there to support one another to keep one another positive so I am really lucky.

"And I have my own family and friends and I have got my Strictly family."

She said she was planning to see in the new year with friends.

"I'm looking forward to celebrating the end of 2023 and the start of 2024," she said.

"We'll probably have a few friends around, but we haven't over-planned at the moment, because of everything with treatment and everything.

"We are just waiting to see how I am. But we'll have a few close friends around and have some food, a few drinks and toast the end of 2023."

Amy was joined on BBC Radio Wales on Sunday morning by fellow Strictly Come Dancing professional Carlos Gu, who spent Christmas with Amy and her family.

Amy revealed the fashion-loving dancer, who often gives her notes on her Strictly outfits, had promised to take her on a shopping trip to Paris.

He told her: "For you 2023 is over, but 2024 is going to be better, you're going to come back with better energy."

He also said he had missed dancing with her, to which Amy replied: "2024, I'll be back on that dancefloor, back with my Strictly family who I've missed so, so much this year."