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The Office star Lucy Davis has shared she has been diagnosed with “incurable” stage four breast cancer.
The daughter of comedian Jasper Carrott, Davis, 53, is best known for playing Dawn Tinsley opposite Martin Freeman’s Tim Canterbury in the cult BBC sitcom.
On Tuesday, Davis shared news of her diagnosis in a post on Instagram, explaining that she’d been told she had stage-four breast cancer around 18 months ago after finding a “really tiny” hard spot in her breast.
The Wonder Woman actor wrote that the cancer had since metastasized and spread to her bones including her spine, right hip and ribs.
Davis shared her message alongside a video in which she could be seen smiling and ringing the bell in hospital to signal the end of treatment.
However, she wrote in the caption, “the cancer is incurable, and too late for chemo”.
“As of now, I’m trying to live out whatever might be left of my life in as fun a way as I possibly can,” Davis wrote. “I always like to find the teachable moments in anything negative that happens. And cancer has not disappointed in that regard; there’s a lot I have learned from it, and I’m grateful for that.”
The Birmingham native explained that the pain had been the hardest thing to deal with, and that she sometimes now used a wheelchair.
“The thing that has been most vital to me is humour,” she wrote. “I asked my friends and family to make fun of me as much as possible (which they’re really good at [eye-roll emoji]), and most importantly of all to not treat me like a sick person. There’s nothing that will make you feel more unwell than being treated as if you’re unwell.”
Davis added that she was “not scared of whatever comes next”, saying: “I’m at peace with it… For me, leaving my physical body just means going home. Any and all grieving is for my family; it’s far harder for them than for me.”
While best known to some audiences for her work in cult 2000s projects such as The Office and Shaun of the Dead, Davis was introduced to a whole new generation via her role in Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
She also appeared in the Disney Channel series The Villains of Valley View, and wrote in her Instagram post that she intended to keep on acting.
“I’m still going to keep up all my work for animal rights. It’s so important to me,” she wrote. “And I still would like to keep working. I’m perfectly able to do so, and acting is one of the biggest joys in my life.”