Olympic medalist Gabriela Dabrowski reveals why 'cancer had to happen to me’
As Canadian tennis star Gabriela Dabrowski nears the one-year anniversary of her cancer diagnosis, the three-time Grand Slam champion revealed in a recent interview that the life-changing news she received in the spring of 2024 changed her outlook on life for the better.
Dabrowski, who won her first Olympic medal in Paris just months after being diagnosed with breast cancer, first revealed in an Instagram post on New Year’s Eve that, despite all the success she had seen that season, she had been keeping a secret.
She had first observed a lump in her left breast during a "self-exam" in 2023, but it was later dismissed by another doctor. The following year, in the spring, a WTA doctor suggested she get another evaluation, and after a series of testing, Dabrowski was diagnosed with breast cancer.
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"I don't regret what the doctor told me then [in 2023], because I'm really happy with how my year turned out, what I learned, what I experienced," she told Olympics.com last week. "It's an acknowledgment that cancer is something really messed up and it can be very scary."
Unbeknownst to her fans, Dabrowski underwent treatment but remained on the court. She won two doubles titles, including the WTA Tour Final, and earned her first Olympic medal at the Summer Games. She also reached a new career-high in doubles ranking, coming in at No. 3.
For Dabrowski, her outlook on life changed following her diagnosis. She said cancer "shook" her into understanding of "what it meant to be alive."
"Cancer had to happen to me; something had to shake me, and cancer did that," she told Olympics.com.
"It shook me. It's not to say that I wasn't grateful for my life before, or the people in it, or the experiences in life that I lead. But it was something bigger, because it really shook me to my core of what it meant to be alive, what it meant to play a sport for a living."
Dabrowski came forward with her journey with the hopes of bringing awareness to early detection and sharing her story as a survivor.
"Early on in my diagnosis I was afraid of cancer becoming a part of my identity forever," she wrote in her post from December. "I don't feel that way anymore. It is a privilege to be able to call myself a survivor."
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