In her no-holds-barred column, Irish singer, actress and TV star Linda Nolan speaks candidly about living with cancer, a disease that has also struck sisters Anne and Coleen and took the life of their sister Bernie. This week Linda’s having a bad week but when famous people talk about their cancer, she doesn’t feel so alone
When us Nolans started talking about cancer, there was always the idiot, “So what?” comment. “They’re famous and have cancer, so what?”
I’ve no problem with anyone asking, ‘So what?’ if they want to, we’re not asking them to give a what or anything else (that I’m not allowed to write here). But those comments always missed the point.
Anne, Bernie, Coleen and I haven’t talked about cancer diagnoses because we think because we’re famous, it matters more. Or because we want you to care more than you do about your own friends and family who aren’t on the telly.
We’ve talked about it because it helps us, and because we hoped it might help everyone going through it, just a little bit.
This year it’s felt like everyone’s been talking about it, and in the last few days Jamie Theakston ’s become the latest “oh no” name to announce they’ve had a diagnosis. I’ve worked on shows with him, he’s lovely and so perpetually young! He is, he’s only 53. Yet he had a biopsy which revealed stage one laryngeal cancer.
Zoe Ball returned to her radio show this week and emotionally wished both him and fellow DJ Lauren Laverne well – Lauren is also having treatment after a cancer diagnosis, aged just 46.
Meanwhile, Amy Dowden was back at the top of the Strictly leaderboard at the weekend after treatment for breast cancer. I’m in awe of her (there’s hope for my own dancing career yet – we know I’m in the mood!). And then there’s Kate, who reportedly returned to her first work meeting since treatment this week.
They’ve all made their cancer diagnoses public and I, for one, find such support in that. All this talk of cancer is troubling, and yet it takes some of the fear and isolation away.
I’ve had a low week after treatment last Wednesday. The new medications are leaving me extra fatigued and my hair’s now coming out in clumps. To be reminded it’s not only me lying in my bed in Blackpool feeling rubbish turns a little light on in the dark.
When I was a kid there was still a taboo around cancer. You’d hear some whisper about “The Big C” and then nothing more until a person died. How lonely and terrifying for that person?
Now, OK, you still have those moments when it feels you’re the only one in the world and WHY? But, then you remember you’re not at all. And that actually, so many more people are living with cancer – properly living with it.
There’s strength in talking about cancer, and I hope the Nolans have contributed a little bit to helping that conversation.
If there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s gassing.
