SEEING personal trainer Mandy Bezant proudly showing off her toned physique in a bikini competition, few could have guessed the physical and emotional trauma and heartache she has been through over the past few years.

Today, she is a picture not only of fitness but also of contentment. She loves her new career, is in better shape and less pain than she has been in in decades and is loving life.

But not all that long ago she was fighting aggressive breast cancer, living in temporary accommodation with her children and a grandchild that she couldn't afford to heat and relying on food banks to feed her family.

When she was 42 Mandy, from Park Gate in Fareham, found a painful patch on her breast.

"I'd picked up my granddaughter and it had hurt," says the now 50-year-old.

"I checked my breast and it didn't feel right. There wasn't a lump but a hard mass."

Mandy was sent for tests, and was told that she had an aggressive form of breast cancer, but luckily it had been caught early.

She had a lumpectomy, followed by a single mastectomy and chemotherapy.

When she went for reconstruction, she elected to have a double mastectomy.

"I thought 'I can't go through this again,'" she says.

"It was hard, but my thinking was, if it's not there, it reduces the risk of the cancer coming back. It was a no brainer. It was the same for chemotherapy. There was a woman in the bed next to me in hospital who said she wasn't going to have chemo because her husband wouldn't like it if her hair fell out.

"Chemo is tough. It's not just the hair on your head. It's your eyebrows, your finger nails, even your nasal hair, so my nose was constantly running.

"But it reduces the chance of the cancer coming back so I didn't feel like I had a choice, I had to do it."

Cancer took a huge toll on Mandy, not only physically, but also in ways that she hadn't imagined.

Mandy, who joined the army at 19 as an HGV driver, had spent years working in credit control. Around a year before her diagnosis, she had been made redundant and had found a fixed-term job.

Following her diagnosis, her contract was not renewed.

"I went from earning £30,000 a year to £60 per week on benefits," says Mandy, who at the time had her three children as well as her young granddaughter living with her.

"My relationship broke down. We had to move to temporary accommodation, which I couldn't afford to heat. We had to rely on food banks.

"When I had my diagnosis, it was such a shock, and it never occurred to me that it would affect things in that way.

"I felt numb but I had to get on with it. My children needed me and my granddaughter was my angel."

Mandy says that having cancer and its treatment took away her sense of self.

"I put on three stone and I was in so much pain as a result of chemo, fibromyalgia and bursitis that it was difficult to get out of bed.

"I started eating more healthily and began to lose weight, then joined a gym. The more weight I lost and the stronger I got, the less pain I felt."

Previously, Mandy had not been a fitness fan but she fell in love with the gym, so much so that last April a personal trainer suggested that she trained to become a personal trainer herself.

By this point she had started work, first in temporary roles and then running her own cleaning company, which allowed her to drop off and collect her granddaughter to and from school.

Mandy thought it was a great idea and set about training for the career change.

"The hardest part about becoming a personal trainer has been the self-belief," she says.

"Interacting with people is my forte."

Mandy began working as a personal trainer in November and loves her new job. And to celebrate her new life, she decided to take part in a fitness bikini competition.

"I felt hugely down on my body when I had cancer and with the treatment," she says.

"Your breasts are such a huge part, physically, of being a woman, and your hair is too.

"I had massive hang-ups of not being able to wear this dress or that top. I almost felt as if I'd lost my identity as a woman.

"I've got that back now, through sheer determination, and through the realisation that just because my breasts are made from the skin on my back, doesn't make me any less of a woman."

A friend was taking part in the Pure Elite Bikini Competition, and suggested that Mandy also entered.

She decided to enter into the transformation category. It was incredibly hard work, with heavy training and a strict eating plan, but for Mandy, it was more than worth it.

"I have massive scars on my back and I didn't mind at all about showing them," she says.

"I wanted to stand in a line up with other women who haven't been through that and be judged for myself. I wanted to know that I could compete and hold my head up high.

"Taking part in the competition was a way of drawing a line under me having cancer," she adds.

"It was a way of sticking two fingers up at it.

"I was so nervous before I went on. I thought I was going to wet myself! But I held my head up and I felt fine."

Mandy took third place in her category, which delighted her, and she will be taking part again in November.

"I'm really proud of myself now. I survived. I carry my scars and my experience with pride.

"I love every single day. Having cancer has made me a more tolerant person and a better mother and grandmother," says Mandy, who has three children, aged 23, 25 and 29, and three grandchildren, with a fourth on its way.

"I relish every single day with my children and grandchildren.

"I definitely feel stronger now than I did before I had cancer. I've got my bounce back. I wouldn't let that beat me, so I'm stronger than I thought."

* Find Mandy on Facebook under Mind & Body Health & Fitness and Instagram at bezantmandy.