Miranda Vincente has come through the trials of breast cancer to discover a whole new life. NICOLE LAMPERT heard her remarkable story

Breast cancer has turned a mother-of-two into a fashion model, the heroine of a television documentary and an autobiographer.

Doubters who believe a 29-year-old can hardly have lived a life worth writing about need only hear a fraction of Miranda Vincente's amazing story.

Following a traditional childhood in Kenton, her life changed when she met a Spanish actor in a carwash. He got a part in the BBC's ill-fated soap opera Eldorado and the two married and moved to Spain. While her husband lurched from job to job, Miranda had two children in two years. It was during her second pregnancy that she first noticed a lump in her breast.

"After the birth it started growing, but the doctors insisted it was benign," said Miranda, of Carrington Square, Harrow Weald. "I left it and left it and it was growing and growing. From being the size of a pea it grew to the size of an orange.

"I was also feeling quite unwell. Eventually, my mother insisted that I come home and have it removed."

Doctors in England immediately diagnosed Miranda as having a rare form of cancer. She was promptly put on chemotherapy, but the damage had already been done and she had to have her right breast and lymph glands removed.

The whole process of flying back and forth from Spain to England, attending hospitals, and suffering drawn-out treatment was an exhausting process which took more than a year-and-a-half. Emotionally, as well as physically, it was very hard.

"It was a relief knowing the cancer had gone but you are losing a very important part of your body. The breast is very important for your femininity and I had an instinct that I would lose my other breast too," said Miranda.

She was right: two years after being given the all clear, cancer was found in Miranda's left breast.

She said: "I had three separate lumps but it was a different sort of cancer. I was very unlucky."

Again, Miranda, had to undergo the arduous treatment and had her other breast removed.

"When I looked in the mirror there were big scars where my breasts were supposed to be.

"I felt I had lost a big part of my femininity and it affected my relationship with my husband. I was at a very low ebb," she said.

But Miranda was over the worst and when her consultant suggested she had her breasts rebuilt she leaped at the chance. She had separated from her husband and was living in Harrow Weald with her two children. She realised the battle she had been through and her journey ahead was something that should be shared.

She said: "People are frightened to talk about breast cancer, it is something they feel awkward with. People I knew in Spain would cross the street rather than talk to me because they were so petrified of saying the wrong thing. I thought it would be great to let women see what it is all about, to build awareness of what it is like."

She contacted documentary companies to see if they were interested in filming her breast reconstruction. She found one and the film will now appear on Channel 4 in October.

The surgery was no easy feat. Breast reconstruction involves taking muscle and skin grafts from the back. Each operation -- the breasts are reconstructed separately -- takes four hours.

But Miranda, who was given only seven months to live when the cancer was first diagnosed, is now fully fit and wants to show the world that you can lead a full and happy life.

Also in October, Miranda will appear with 15 other breast cancer survivors on a catwalk in front of hundreds, including the Prime Minister's wife Cherie Booth and broadcaster Vanessa Feltz.

The show, at the Park Lane Hotel in the West End, is being put on by charity Breast Cancer Care and is aimed at showing that it is possible to look and feel good after breast cancer.

And she is looking for a publisher for her autobiography.

She admits: "You can't ever put cancer in your past because you never know whether it is going to come back. That is something you live with."

But she added: "Because you never know what is around the corner you have to try and enjoy life as much as you can. If you want to do something, go ahead and do it. If you believe in something enough you will achieve it."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.