‘GP told me I was suffering from stress – but I had rare cancer’ | UK | News

A beauty pageant winner who beat cancer is advising people to grasp “fear” for success in 2025.

Standing on stage in Miami, and wearing high heels for the first time in years, Ngozi Onwuchekwa had flashbacks to her time battling a rare cancer called Rhabdomyosarcoma.

She first knew something was wrong when she had a period that would not end and after bleeding every day for several months she tried to go to a GP to get some answers.

But the GP just said it was due to stress and that she should go home and it would be okay and her period would regulate itself.

She said: “If I had taken that advice, I probably wouldn’t be here today, because what was causing the bleeding was a tumour that was growing inside me. It took months [to get it properly diagnosed].”

The aggressive cancer develops in the body’s soft tissues including the head and neck, the bladder, the vagina, arms and legs, and the torso.

During her fight with the disease, Mrs Onwuchekwa underwent 12 months of cancer treatment, which included nine rounds of chemotherapy and surgeries, including a hysterectomy.

But she beat the odds to get through it and that experience left her thinking about taking on challenges outside her comfort zone.

Within a year of remission, she entered the Mrs Universe competition and her inspirational story led to her winning the Mrs Exceptional Lady Universe crown.

Mrs Onwuchekwa said: “I’m not from a pageant background; I have a very serious job, which I still do.

“If anything, my job is really pushing other people into the limelight. That’s me in the background doing that. And I’m from a very academic family.

“But I think that because I was sick for so long and my whole being changed, I looked so different. I mean, I looked emaciated.

“I felt emaciated. I could barely walk, talk or even eat. And when I started to get a little bit better, I started to feel and understand that life is short, right? And everybody says that.

“But for some reason, I understood what people meant by that. That was one. And secondly, I was attracted to something that celebrated inner and outer beauty because I had been stripped of that for so long.”

“And so I found myself drawn to something that was a celebration of life, a celebration of inner accomplishments, a celebration of just looking healthy.

“And so I just filled out the form and took time to do it. But then when I started to get through, oh, you go to the next stage and then you go to the next stage, you go to the next stage. I thought, my goodness, they’re actually taking me seriously.

“And so I just went along with it, you know, and I didn’t object to it because I just wanted to celebrate life. And it sounds so silly and so weird to people.

“But honestly, when you have been in the prison [of cancer treatment] for such a long time, it felt good.

“It felt good to want to celebrate life and to be making strides towards that.

“And also with this particular pageant, the other thing I was attracted to was the celebration of women who’d actually been through something.

“When I went in to do the pageant, I didn’t feel that I was actually well enough to take part.

“And I remember being on stage was the first time I’d actually probably put heels on. I mean, I’d practiced a little bit in the lead up to it, but being on stage in heels, I hadn’t worn heels in such a long time.

“And I was getting flashbacks when I was on stage of when I was in a hospital. And then I had gone from a world that was so small with barely anybody in it to now being on this stage with all these people. And I found myself fortunate.

“I found myself coming in and out of flashbacks of being in hospital, literally, you know, feeling like I was dying, to all these people around me.

“And I didn’t know how I would navigate that. I just had to pull this strength from somewhere.”

It’s now two years on from that moment in Miami and Mrs Onwuchekwa, from West Sussex, says others can grasp fear to bring about success.

She has turned fear into a positive acronym.

The F stands for flourish by using fear as a catalyst for personal development. The E means endure and know you have the strength to persevere and overcome.

The A stands for attack it by taking a proactive approach to your fears and break them down into smaller more manageable chunks and tackle them one by one.

And R means rejoice, which is where Mrs Onwuchekwa reminds herself that facing her fears will make her stronger and more resilient than ever, and this is a reason to celebrate and rejoice.

The 46-year-old said: “With new year resolutions, it is definitely a start, but I think one thing people need to remember is just give themselves some grace and don’t come up with grandiose things.

“The way that I see it is that it is just baby steps throughout the year. I mean, you know, the part from me getting from where I was to where I am now was not a straightforward line.

“There were many times in between that I failed, many times that I broke down, many times where I couldn’t see that light, right?

“But what I said to myself was, baby, baby, baby, baby steps. And I think that with new year resolutions, do the baby steps, do little things that will take you through the rest of the year.

“And if you fall off it, that’s fine. Carry on when you feel stronger and just keep going.

“And that is what I think, that kind of discipline, and that kind of resilience is what gets you through and is what gets you closer to whatever goal that you have in mind for yourself.”

“It’s a good start to journal it, write it down, talk to your friends about it, do whatever you need to do. But if you fall off it, that’s okay. Just get back on the horse and keep going.”