Soap Opera Actress Alia Bastian Hospitalized in Wake of Cancer Diagnosis

Former Hollyoaks star Ali Bastian was rushed to the hospital over the weekend amid her ongoing battle with cancer. The actress, who announced in September that she was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer, revealed in a Monday post to her Instagram Story that she was back home after a brief hospitalization at Cork University Hospital A&E.

“Thank you so much to all at Cork University Hospital A&E for taking care of me this weekend,” Bastian, 42, wrote overtop a photo of herself enjoying some time outside, per The Sun. “Back home now getting some fresh air and some rest.”

The actress did not share further details about her recent hospital trip, which came just five months after she revealed her cancer diagnosis to OK! Magazine. Bastian, who appeared in Hollyoaks between 2001 to 2007, said she was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer in June after discovering a lump whilst breastfeeding her daughter Isabella, 19 months. Although she initially believed she had a blocked duct, she suspected it was something else and got further testing when antibiotics didn’t solve the problem.

“It was a total shock,” she said. “I have mornings when I wake up and I’ve forgotten… and then suddenly I remember. I’m still trying to process it.”

Her husband, David O’Mahony, recalled, “I was with the kids and Ali stuck her head round the door and said that cancerous cells had turned up in the biopsy. She said it in the most subtle way so the girls didn’t twig. I could see how scared and in shock she was. It’s so tempting to try and ‘positive’ your way through news like this but it just hit us like a sledgehammer.”

Bastian, who has also appeared on the BBC One series Doctors and Strictly Come Dancing, is now undergoing weekly chemotherapy ahead of a mastectomy and radiotherapy next year.

In an October update, the actress shared the emotional moment she cut her hair off with the help of her husband, writing in the caption, “Hair loss is just one aspect of all of this that we all wish wasn’t a side effect but I know it’s not forever and a small price to pay for the chance to be well again. The deeper I get into my treatment, the more I see this as an outward expression of how stripped back and raw it feels right now. Also sharing as this feels like part of my way… not ‘back’ to myself… as I will be forever changed… but forward towards my future …to show up as I am right now. In the truth of today.”