Canadian doubles star Gabriela Dabrowski made historical past in November when she grew to become the primary Canadian to win the WTA Finals alongside her companion, New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe.
It got here just some months after the Ottawa’s native captured a blended doubles bronze on the Paris 2024 Olympics with Felix Auger-Aliassime of Montreal.
However what nobody knew was that Dabrowski completed all of this whereas battling breast most cancers, a analysis she obtained in mid-April.
The 32-year-old shared her analysis for the primary time on Tuesday in an Instagram submit, with the hope of emphasizing the life you possibly can proceed to stay if the sickness is detected early.
“I do know this can come as a shock to many, however I’m okay and I can be okay,” Dabrowski wrote within the submit. “Early detection saves lives. I can wholeheartedly agree with this.”
Dabrowski was named Tennis Canada’s ladies’s doubles participant of the 12 months for 2024. Ranked third on the earth in doubles, her season culminated with the historic WTA Finals win in Saudi Arabia in November.
WATCH | Dabrowski displays on historic 12 months:
CBC Sports activities’ Brittany MacLean chats with Gabriela Dabrowski about her historic 2024 season, together with changing into the primary Canadian to win the WTA Finals, incomes Olympic bronze in blended doubles, and her journey as a tennis trailblazer.
As she reached new heights in her tennis profession, Dabrowski wrote that her most cancers analysis helped her see issues in a brand new mild, together with her family and friends, the sport she loves, and even the possibility to play with Routliffe.
“When you noticed me smiling extra on courtroom up to now six months, it was real,” she wrote.
“An amazing reminder that you haven’t any concept what individuals are going by,” Routliffe wrote about her doubles companion on Instagram on Tuesday. “This is to extra smiling in 2025.”
Olympic medal ‘a childhood dream come true’
Dabrowski wrote that she first found a lump in her left breast throughout a self-exam within the spring of 2023. A physician instructed her to not fear about it.
However by spring 2024, when Dabrowski felt the lump had grown, one other physician who examined her throughout a WTA bodily urged her to get scanned.
Dabrowski had a mammogram and an ultrasound, and a radiologist beneficial a direct biopsy, feeling that the lump wasn’t only a cyst.
The biopsy occurred in Florida the subsequent day, adopted that very same day by the analysis.
“These are phrases you by no means count on to listen to, and immediately your life or the lifetime of a cherished one turns the wrong way up,” Dabrowski wrote.
The following few months included two surgical procedures, restoration, and rehab, all of which left her unable to boost her left arm excessive sufficient to serve.
Additional therapy was barely delayed to compete at Wimbledon, the place she reached the finals, and the Olympics, the place she introduced residence a medal at her third Video games.
Successful an Olympic medal was “a childhood dream that had come true,” Dabrowski instructed CBC Sports activities’ Brittany MacLean in December.
“I grew up watching the Olympics and it was an enormous a part of our household. There was a giant emphasis on respecting athletes in sport and all of the sacrifices they make. I felt just like the Olympics was type of just like the end result of a number of blood, sweat and tears over many, a few years.”
However the year-end finals with Routliffe was further particular due to the happiness the 2 shared, each on and off the courtroom, she mentioned.
The significance of early detection
Dabrowski mentioned she wasn’t prepared earlier than to reveal herself to the questions and a focus her analysis would immediate, preferring to navigate it privately.
However she in the end determined sharing her story may assist others. Throughout October’s Breast Most cancers Consciousness Month, she discovered herself desirous to share posts in regards to the significance of early detection.
“My intentions in sharing a few of my expertise are to emphasise the standard of life one can keep when most cancers is detected early, when you have got entry to docs and different well being care practitioners who’re extremely expert and devoted to their craft.”
Now, Dabrowski mentioned she has a greater grasp on her therapy, the unintended effects and handle them.
“Early on in my analysis I used to be afraid of most cancers changing into a part of my identification perpetually. I do not really feel that approach anymore. It’s a privilege to have the ability to name myself a survivor.”
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