Lucy Davis, who played Dawn Tinsley on the U.K. series The Office, revealed on Instagram Tuesday that a stage four breast cancer diagnosis from a year and a half ago has metastasized to her spine, right hip, and ribs. At this point, she said, the disease was “incurable” and that she was no longer a candidate for chemotherapy. “I’m not scared of whatever comes next,” she wrote. “I’m at peace with it.”
“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,” she wrote in a post, attached with a video of her ringing a bell after talking about her diagnosis. “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.”
She encouraged anyone reading her story to get anything unusual checked out by a doctor. “The initial lump that I felt, wasn’t a ‘lump’ as such; rather a kind of hard spot,” she wrote. “Really tiny. I almost didn’t bother getting it checked.”
Davis says she’s now faces a lot of physical pain and finds walking and standing difficult. She uses a wheelchair but encourages fans not to feel sad for her. “If you see me toddling around in [a wheelchair], feel free to give me a push,” she wrote. She added that her sense of humor has remained intact and that she expects friends and family to poke fun at her. “There’s nothing that will make you feel more unwell than being treated as if you’re unwell,” she wrote.
She intends to stay committed to animal rights activism and added that she expects to see her beloved dog Gracie, who died in 2024, “sooner than expected.” She also wants to continue acting. “I’m perfectly able to do so, and acting is one of the biggest joys in my life,” she wrote.
The Office ran on the BBC, which broadcast 12 episodes in 2001 and 2002 and two Christmas episodes the following year. On the show, Davis played the receptionist who flirts with her colleague Tim (Martin Freeman), although she’s already engaged. Those two characters would be redeveloped as Pam and Jim for the U.S. edition of the show in 2005. She later appeared in Shaun of the Dead and Wonder Woman.
