I don't think anyone could be more breast aware than me. Having had two fibro- adenoma (benign breast lumps) removed when I was 25, I have checked my breasts diligently ever since. So you can imagine how relieved I was in May 2001 when, having gone to Charing Cross hospital with a swelling under my right arm, I was told I had nothing to worry about.

My husband Paul and I walked happily out of the drab consulting room and decided that, as it was such a lovely day, we would go and celebrate at the River Cafe. So we sat outside, drank prosecco and laughed and laughed because we were so happy and so relieved. We talked about Late, the Radio 4 series we had just made together, and the episode of Have I Got News for You that had been recorded the night before. And our plans for the summer. And the IVF that we would now be starting, which might give us the child we longed for.

Nine months later, on a cold, grey February afternoon, we sat outside the same airless hospital room, as the wind howled like a banshee through the air-conditioning system. We held hands very, very tightly. Two days previously, surgeons had taken out the small lump I had found in January. "You again," the consultant had said, recognising Paul, not me. "Oh dear, yes," he had continued, examining my left breast. "Well, nothing to worry about, but we'll take it out to make sure." Now we were waiting to find out if the lump was invasive.

It was. It was cancer. I would need another operation in five days' time, which would involve more flesh being taken out and the removal of my lymph nodes - major surgery. Two months earlier, I'd been at Guy's hospital having IVF treatment. Now I was being told I might need chemotherapy, which would almost certainly leave me infertile.

When you are told you have cancer, the world stops. You feel as if you are watching everyone through a glass, brightly. They are alive. They know, or think, they will be alive next week, next year. But you might not be. Everything you do, every meal you eat, every piece of music you hear, every blossom you see feels as if it might be your last. Your blithe assurance in your own immortality has been thrown into doubt. You might die. Soon.

I don't think I could have got through those first weeks without Paul. He was still recording Room 101 when I was in hospital, but he came to see me twice a day. To have to be spontaneously funny when your wife is being operated on for cancer must be a nightmare. As soon as the series finished, he cut down on all his commitments, and he was with me through that endless cycle of doctors' surgeries and waiting rooms.

Right at the beginning, we went through a tidal wave of emotion - disbelief, anger, grief. There was a lot of numbness, too. But in the midst of this, there were some amazing moments. Making love became even deeper, and even more emotional. We went away. It was early spring, and we walked and walked - daffodils and crocuses were bursting through everywhere. I can remember every detail of those walks.

And we laughed. We watched Dad's Army, Laurel and Hardy - and The Simpsons, which always seemed to have a pertinent message about the soul, or the fifth dimension, or the nature of love.

Six months on, we have adapted to my illness. I meditate every day, do yoga and swim in the sea where we live in East Sussex. I am getting used to having one breast smaller than the other. I have learned to love my body again - to understand why it got ill.

Paul, with amazing patience, chops up carrots and broccoli for the fresh juices we both drink to boost our immune systems. We've cut out wheat, dairy products and meat, and eat more pulses and beans. Yes, we fart more, but we live by the sea, so the smell doesn't linger.

My sister put us in touch with an inspirational woman called Dr Rosy Daniel. A former director of the Bristol Cancer Centre, she gave us hope and a focus when conventional medicine seemed to offer only more airless hospital rooms. Paul travels with me to London for acupuncture, for spiritual healing, for visits to the Royal London homeopathic hospital. We are even learning Johrei, a Japanese energy medicine that is studied at Imperial College, London, because of the influence it has on the immune system. We both feel healthier than we have done for years. Rather than raging against fate, we have decided to view what is happening to us as part of a spiritual journey.

Maybe one of the reasons that I am feeling so healthy is that, after meeting an appalling and callous doctor (or was he a robot? He didn't look us in the eye so it was hard to tell) at the Royal Marsden hospital in London, I decided to turn down chemotherapy.

This is a personal choice: I have always been intuitive about my body. Ten years ago, I suffered three miscarriages in the space of a year, and I insisted on various tests being carried out - even though the doctor thought he knew better. My belief is that my tumours, which were very small but very high in oestrogen and progesterone, were caused by the IVF. After all, these were the same hormones that I had been injecting myself with (in the form of genetically modified Chinese hamster urine!).

So I am now giving my body a chance to get back into balance, rather than subjecting it to an onslaught of more chemicals. The IVF doctors are, understandably, panicking and insist the tumours must have been there already. However, if that's true, it throws into question the breast-screening programme: what's the point in giving women an all-clear if eight months later they've got cancer?

Recently, the press has been full of newly discovered links between HRT and breast cancer, and a few doctors I have spoken to believe that the link to IVF will be the next to be revealed. So if anyone has had IVF, or has subjected their body to fabricated hormones such as the morning-after pill, it might be worth having a check-up. And think about changing your diet to include more phyto- oestrogens - found in broccoli, soya and tofu. Prevention is better than cure.

I don't think it is useful for Paul or me to carry on being angry about what has happened. Yes, if rather than twice being shunted off to a disinterested nurse, the doctor had seen me, he might have picked up on the stress I was feeling as I embarked on IVF (stress is thought to be related to cancer). Yes, if my instinctive fears had been listened to rather than dismissed by the surgeon, perhaps I could have been given a six-month follow-up, which might have picked up the tumour earlier. Yes, if the surgeon had been more enlightened, I might have got dietary advice. Yes, if IVF doctors had shown half as much zeal in checking breast tissue for oestrogen overstimulation as they did my ovaries, perhaps it would have been picked up earlier. Yes if...

When we last saw my consultant, I suggested that patients should be told they have "a cancer" rather than cancer. By using the word in the abstract (like life and death), we give it power, and so it hangs around like a shroud.

But it is not always a death sentence - it is a disease. A horrible one, but one that people do often recover from. And as more is discovered about the body, particularly in the new field of mind/body medicine known as psychoneuroimmunology, it is emerging that emotions can help to create chemical changes in the body. And because breast cancer is often found early enough, it is possible to survive.

And I guess this is my message to any woman reading this who is diagnosed with breast cancer. From where I am, you are still alive. So live. Embrace life. Stop worrying about trivial things. Forgive the people who used to annoy you; let the people you love know how much they mean to you. And believe that you can get better: lots of women do. Be strong about the treatment choices you make - you know more about your body than you think, and often you know more than the doctors.

Everyone has cancer cells. When your immune system is functioning properly it gets rid of them. So don't hate your body for "letting you down"; learn to love and trust it again.

I would also recommend that you find a support centre (your hospital should have details), which will help to keep you together and/or offer treatments - every city should have one. I met some amazingly strong, wonderful women at the Haven Trust in London when I was feeling bleak.

Most of the women I have met during my treatment were already breast aware. They were the ones who found the lumps. Their problems often started when they tried to convince a doctor.

So my plea is that it should not be the women, but the doctors and surgeons, who should be more aware. More aware that, as women, we live with the cycles of our bodies, month in, month out - and that, just maybe, we might be right. So listen to us, Please. Because until we change that arrogance, more women like me will suffer needlessly.

· This article was first published in Pink Ribbon magazine