A ‘benign’ lump turned out to be breast cancer: Dubai dancer on fighting it – ‘I didn’t only survive. I thrive’

"Darling, I fought with all my heart to stay alive. I didn't only survive. I thrive."

Every year, Ludmilla Rego Tenório de Albuquerque, known to most as Milla Tenório, waits for October. It is the month she tells her story: a story of rebirth and of hope, told in the belief that someone newly diagnosed with breast cancer might find in it the faith to carry on.

A Brazilian expat, dancer and fitness enthusiast, Milla doesn't waste words. She gets straight to it. Her diagnosis came in 2020, just as COVID-19 swept the globe and the world retreated indoors. Her dance studio was forced to close, and she was in the middle of a divorce. "Everything happened at the same time," she recalls.

She remembers the day it began. "It was a random day. I was doing random things, running to the bank, you know the sort of thing. And then I felt a horrible pain under my armpit." Assuming it was a pulled muscle, she expected it to pass within minutes. Minutes became hours, and she went to the hospital.

There, she learned that a lump that had been diagnosed as benign for years, and that she had dutifully monitored with regular follow-ups, had turned cancerous. Her doctor spotted the change on an ultrasound and ordered a biopsy. Days later, her worst fears were confirmed: the lump was malignant. "A month later, I was in the operating room," Milla says.

The breast was not removed; but 32 lymph nodes were. “I couldn’t move my arm,” she says, adding that she had to do physiotherapy.

There were days of tears, sleepless nights, and fear that she might not survive. Even so, Milla kept searching for the courage to push on. "There were bad days," she says. "But on the good days, I was filled with a powerful energy to fight. I wanted to keep working. I wanted to stay active."

More than that, she resolved to make it the best year of her life. And if cancer had to be defeated, so be it.

She did not fight alone. A circle of 12 close friends and family members stood by her throughout. "My friends would take me out for lunch after every chemotherapy session. They took such good care of me that I actually looked forward to the sessions," she says with a quiet laugh.

Between treatments, she discovered new talents, among them arts, crafts and painting. "I still paint to this day," she adds.

Eventually, Milla was declared cancer-free. But recovery is a jagged road. For a cancer survivor, 'normal' is a loaded word. For Milla, it meant finding her way back to teaching and to the rhythm of everyday life. "It took me a year after chemotherapy," she says. "I gained more than 10 kilos, and I had to stabilise my emotions."

Looking back, she has drawn a few lessons from those years. There is always a fight, she says: a fight to discover a new skill or a hidden talent, until fear slowly steps aside. And she found strength in the smallest joys. Sometimes, it's just opening the curtains to let the sunshine in, or just showing up for herself.

Or maybe, dance.