Yvette's cancer shock - ‘A PSYCHIC SAVED MY LIFE'

The Shorty star’s reading revealed a real-life medical emergency

- Cloe Willetts

When bubbly Kiwi actress Yvette Parsons turned 60 in October, she decided to get her astrological chart done by an old friend in London to mark her milestone birthday.

But what was intended to be a fun celebratory gift ended up potentially saving her life, after astrologer Laura Boomer-Trent warned Yvette to keep a serious eye on her health.

Three months later, in January this year, the Educators star was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I had a little red mark on my breast for about a year and when I took my mother to the doctor, I asked the GP if she minded having a look while we were there. She did but said it was nothing,” recalls Yvette, who has an adult son, Frank, 35.

“When my friend did my astrology chart, she said there’d be something up with my health in February or March and if I had any niggling problems, I needed to get them checked out. I decided to get my breast looked at properly.”

Having missed a mammogram in 2021 because of the pandemic, Yvette went for an examination and a lump was discovered. The former Shortland Street star had immediate mammograms and an ultrasound before a biopsy unearthed two cancerous growths in her breast.

“It was as though my body was telling me something was wrong because the mark itself wasn’t anything cancerous,” tells Yvette, whose Shorty character Minerva McCaskill, aka Ben Barrington’s mum, was ironically also diagnosed with breast cancer.