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Leanne Hainsby Commemorates a Year Since Chemo Started: ‘I Was So Frightened’
Cara Lynn Shultz – September 25, 2023
The Peloton instructor looks back one year after beginning chemotherapy for breast cancer
- Leanne Hainsby celebrates the one-year anniversary of when she started chemotherapy
- The Peloton instructor was “trying my best to be brave” during breast cancer struggle
- She’s turning her attention to charity work, and says she wants to ”make a difference”
A year after starting the chemotherapy treatments that saved her life, Leanne Hainsby is looking back and feeling “lucky.”
“On this day last year, I started chemotherapy,” the popular British Peloton instructor wrote on Instagram. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer when she was just 35 years old last August.
“I was so frightened, unsure of it all, totally overwhelmed and trying my best to be brave, and accepting,” Hainsby, now 36, wrote.
Hainsby — who continued to teach continued to teach 3-4 Peloton classes a week to unknowing members while undergoing 12 weeks of chemo — announced that she’s teamed up with a charity initiative aimed at early diagnosis of breast cancer.
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“Today, I had the privilege of announcing an event I am hosting (that sold out within minutes 🥹), which is aimed at raising awareness and money for @coppafeelpeople – a charity that [will] educate, encourage and empower people (especially young people) to ensure breast cancer is diagnosed early and correctly.”
“I feel SO lucky to be well, and proud for this moment. It’s taken a lot to get here, and I’m really ready to hopefully make a difference x.”
Related: Peloton Instructor Leanne Hainsby Describes Breast Cancer Journey: ‘It’s Been a Tough Year’
Hainsby’s health struggle began during an emotional time in her life, as “two days before my best friend’s funeral, I found a lump in my breast,” she captioned a series of Instagram photos of herself in a hospital bed last year.
“That really is a sentence I NEVER imagined writing.”
After first being dismissed by a doctor who said she was fine, she went on to consult another physician and was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2022.
“I trusted my gut and got a second opinion,” she wrote. “That saved my life. Check, and check again.”
Back in August, Hainsby — who is engaged to fellow Peloton instructor Ben Alldis, 30 —celebrated another milestone: One year of sobriety.
She said she was inspired to give up alcohol after her cancer diagnosis.
“At first, it was to ensure that I was as healthy as possible “ during treatment, she wrote on Instagram. “Then it quickly turned into the best decision I made for myself, because everything everyone says about stopping drinking, for me, continues to be true.”
Related: Peloton’s Leanne Hainsby Admits She’s Not Yet Ready to Start Wedding Planning After Cancer Treatment
While she said that her mental clarity and productivity improved, “I think my initial reason for stopping drinking was definitely more intense than it would be for most. Deep in the VERY early stages of traumatic grief, and shock, drinking too much to try and numb an ounce of the pain in any way possible, and then diagnosed with cancer a few weeks later, it could have been a recipe for disaster.”
But instead, Hainsby said, “I chose to sit with the feelings, as brutal and relentless as they have been.”
And while “we all have our own definition of fun,” Hainsby wrote, “I’m just redefining mine.”